


Binding Energy

by justafandomfollower



Series: One Plus One (equals one) [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Firestorm Bond, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justafandomfollower/pseuds/justafandomfollower
Summary: Ronnie and Martin are on the run from Eiling, but they're still strangers, and they have to learn not only how to harness Firestorm's abilities, but also get along in the meantime, if they're going to survive the army general's attacks.





	1. A Hesitant Agreement

Every limb ached. Every muscle trembled with pain and exhaustion. Even his bones seemed weaker. He was light headed and tired, hungry and trembling. Martin had fasted before, of course, for twenty-four hours at a time even, so normally a day without food or water wouldn’t have such drastic effects – but Martin had never been tortured during his fasts before either.

And that was what had happened to him – he’d been tortured. Drugged, chained, and shocked with electricity in attempt to force him to give up the secrets of Firestorm: a nuclear-powered amalgam of him and a young man by the name of Ronnie Raymond, capable of calling forth nuclear fire, and even capable of flight.

“Are you alright?” Ronald asked worriedly, hovering at his side. He had a hand under Martin’s elbow, holding him upright.

“I… it feels like nothing has changed,” Martin said, and his own voice was worried as well. Worried and weak, cracking with exhaustion and thirst. He wet his lips, swallowed, and tried to stand straighter.

The problem was, it had already been three days since Ronald had rescued him from his imprisonment, three days of a new life on the run. In those three days, he should have healed somewhat, and in those three days he had most certainly eaten and slept.

“It’s Firestorm, isn’t it?”

Martin didn’t need to say anything in response – they both knew it was. It might have been three days since he and Ronald had decided to run, agreeing that staying would have only put their loved ones (as well as themselves) in danger, but Martin had only existed as himself for less than an hour since they had entered into a hesitant agreement with each other in order to stay alive.

It had been easier that way, so far – Firestorm could fly. Firestorm could protect them. (Firestorm cost less money to feed, required only one bus ticket instead of two.) And with Martin as weak as he was, it too had been easier to simply let Firestorm’s strength hold them up.

He met Ronald’s gaze as firmly as he was able. “I will be fine,” he said, “I simply require time.”

“Time might be something we don’t have,” Ronald warned.

Martin nodded succinctly in agreement. “Perhaps not.” There was no way for them to know how well their pursuers were tracking them. With the entire backing of the United States Army behind him, General Eiling’s resources were essentially limitless.

Their own resources, on the other hand, were decidedly less so.

“Maybe we should…” Ronald started.

Martin found himself hesitating. He couldn’t deny that over the last couple of days he had hated every moment he spent as himself, cursed the weakness of his limbs and the frailty of his body, but he needed to heal. He had to believe that he and Ronald would not spend the rest of their lives fused together.

“I appreciate your need to look after me,” Martin said gently, meaning it whole-heartedly, “but I’m going to have to deal with the healing process eventually.”

“I know,” Ronald agreed unhappily, “it’s just…” he glanced behind them, looking around as if to ensure they hadn’t been followed, that no one was nearby, listening in.

“Yes,” Martin agreed simply. Healing took time, and as Ronald had said earlier, time apart might not have been something they could afford to take. Time apart left them vulnerable. Firestorm was safer.

Still.

“You need a break too,” Martin continued, looking over the exhausted younger man in front of him. “Sleep. I can keep watch for once.” Ronald had spent the past three days keeping them safe, barely sleeping as Firestorm, and he’d suffered the same torture as Martin, even if his own pain had been slightly less intense.

As one person, sleep was a risk, even with Firestorm’s ability to protect himself – they’d taken it in snatches and segments so far, never getting a full night’s rest. As two, there remained someone to watch over the other, and to wake them if trouble came, even with the added vulnerability.

Ronald opened his mouth as if to argue, but Martin cut him off.

“I can remain awake for an hour or two,” he said, despite the fact that he wasn’t absolutely certain his words were true. He took a seat on a nearby park bench, grateful for the respite, and gestured toward the empty space next to him.

Yes, it was true that his limbs shook and his head was foggy with pain, but he could see the bags under Ronald’s eyes, could feel his exhaustion mingling with Martin’s own.

“Of the two of us,” he continued, as Ronald still hesitated, “you are the one who needs to remain healthy in order for us _both_ to be safe.” He didn’t know Ronald well – he’d only met the man for the first time about a week ago, no matter how closely their lives were entwined – but there was one thing he’d learned fairly quickly about the other man: Ronald’s drive to help others.

The young man had run into the exploding STAR Labs particle accelerator that had given them their abilities, knowing that it would likely mean his death, and had probably saved hundreds as a result. He’d come to rescue Martin from the army base he’d been held at, despite almost insurmountable odds. And he’d chosen to leave his fiancée and his friends behind, to keep them safe.

Now he was putting that drive into use keeping Firestorm safe, and if a little bit of manipulation was what it took to keep Ronald healthy, Martin wouldn’t back down. However much pain he was in at the moment was nothing, compared to what his life could have been had Ronald not come for him. He owed the man far more than he could ever repay.

Thankfully, his words worked. Ronald hesitated a moment longer, but exhaustion and common sense won out, and he curled up on the long bench next to Martin.

The older man knew the second his younger partner had drifted off, only a minute or two after he’d lain down, because even separated they were still linked. Martin was starting to become familiar with those emotions in the back of his mind that weren’t his, as well as what if felt like when the person experiencing those emotions had drifted off into unconsciousness.

Blinking himself awake, and gazing around the park, Martin settled in to act as lookout for Ronald, and to keep him safe the way Ronald had protected him. It was the least he could do.

* * *

 

A hand on his shoulder was enough to wake him, and Ronnie blinked as he woke. The short nap had helped, no doubt, but he still felt exhausted and hungry. He sat up, straightening and stretching.

“Thanks,” he said to Stein. “How long was I out?”

“Not even two hours, I’m afraid, but the park was starting to get busy.”

Ronnie looked around, noting the few other people ambling around. He stood. “Right. Guess it’s time to move on then.”

Next to him, Stein struggled to stand as well, and Ronnie, still in the process of waking up, was hit with the realization that though he _was_ hungry and exhausted, most of what he was feeling came from the other man.

“Whoa,” he said in alarm, surging forward and catching Stein before he could fall. “When was the last time you ate something?” ( _Had Eiling fed him?_ Ronnie worried.)

“As myself, or as Firestorm?” Stein asked blearily, looking up at him.

Ronnie felt his stomach drop in alarm and concern. Right – apparently, the professor’s body entered some sort of stasis when he was part of Firestorm, unchanging, not healing. “I…” he glanced around again, noting each person in their field of view. “Should we merge again then?” he asked. No one was looking their way. “At least until we find some food?”

Stein hesitated. “I will need to eat on my own eventually,” he said, but Ronnie recognized the capitulation for what it was. Stein could barely stand, let alone walk.

Ronnie shifted his grip on Stein’s elbow, holding out his hand hesitantly for the other man. With another moment’s pause, Stein took it, and they became light and pure energy. They fused together once more, and Firestorm stood in Ronnie’s place.

Firestorm – the cause of all their troubles, but also the only reason they had survived their ordeals so far, and likely their best hope to remain safe. Ronnie had conflicted feelings for the fire at his fingertips.

In Ronnie’s mind once more, Stein became alert yet again, his aches and pains and hungers dissipating.

_“How much money do we still have?”_

Ronnie’s hand moved to pat the wallet in his pocket, but he didn’t pull it out. “We should save it if we can,” he warned, but he also knew very well that Stein needed to eat, if he was ever going to remain separate for any length of time.

_“It would not be wise for me to simply eat a meal after my time without any sustenance,”_ Stein said. _“If we simply find a public water fountain…”_

Ronnie knew what Stein was doing, knew he was trying to save their money, trying to downplay his own weakness, but he also knew the other man was right. It would be an even bigger waste of money if Stein wasn’t able to keep down whatever food they did manage to buy. Still, he hesitated.

_“We have no idea how long this situation will last,”_ Stein continued. _“We must conserve what few resources we have until we have a more concrete plan.”_

It wasn’t a long-term plan, not yet, but it would do for now.

* * *

 

Firestorm jolted awake with a start, fire flaring to life. Ronnie braced himself against the coming attack, breathing hard, before realizing that there was no danger.

There was no one in sight, no threat to defend against. And yet, Ronnie was still afraid. But he was getting used to it, adjusting to his connection with Stein, and starting to instinctively separate his emotions from the other man’s.

“Professor?” he asked in concern, getting his breathing under control, separating his own mental state from Stein’s fear.

_“I… I’m sorry, dear boy,”_ Stein managed to say, hesitant and muddled. He still hadn’t quite emerged from his nightmare from what Ronnie could tell.

Another night interrupted, but it wasn’t as if Stein was the only one with nightmares, even if his were more frequent. “We’re fine,” Ronnie said reassuringly, glancing around again to double check. “We’re safe, and we’re hundreds of miles from Eiling.”

_“Ri… right,”_ Stein stammered out, and Ronnie could feel him awakening fully, mustering his strength. _“I am sorry,”_ he continued, more clearly, tone resigned and regretful. _“Perhaps it is time we attempt to sleep separately.”_

But Ronnie hesitated.

_“There is no point in my interrupting_ both _of our rest.”_

True – they needed the all the sleep they could take, and it was better for one of them to be alert than both of them tired. But Firestorm was their safety net. If they were attacked while asleep and separate, then they stood no chance. If they were attacked while sleeping as Firestorm, at least they had a chance to defend themselves. A few days before, Stein had managed to stay awake and keep watch while Ronnie had caught a few hours, but they were both exhausted now, and one of them remaining awake to watch over the other wasn’t always going to be an option.

They’d have to relax eventually, they couldn’t keep up their constant vigilance forever, and there’d been no sign of Eiling in the week or so since they’d fled.

The debate was difficult, and there were so many arguments for each side, but in the end, it all boiled down to one thing: Ronnie didn’t want to spend the rest of his life as Firestorm. He stood them up.

“Alright,” he said, “shall we?”

* * *

 

Grabbing the first coat off the top of the bin, Ronnie hurried through the homeless shelter he’d made his way to. With winter not yet over, he and Stein had headed south, but that didn’t mean the weather was always pleasant. Even with Firestorm’s extra heat, nights could get mighty cold. They were lucky that this city had a clothing drive for the homeless, and was simply giving everything away.

He handed his ticket to the woman manning the booth.

Five clothing tickets, one healthcare ticket, and a meal ticket, that was what he’d been given at the door, to ensure that everyone who came left with something.

They could have entered as Ronnie and Martin, could have taken more, but in a public event such as this, Firestorm was safer, and Stein still lacked the energy for walking around all day.

“What else?” Ronnie asked, shrugging on the coat even though they were indoors. He was wearing sunglasses that hid Firestorm’s eyes, but he didn’t care anymore who overheard him.

_“Socks,”_ Stein suggested, _“and perhaps, well… I suppose another outfit.”_

They had the backpack Cisco had given them, though there was nothing in it at the moment but a few water bottles, refilled – they’d already eaten and drank what Ronnie’s friend had packed for their car ride. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs.

So Ronnie hurried around the large building, navigating the crowd of people even less fortunate than they were, gathering up what he could. An hour later he left the building, backpack now carrying another shirt, a pair of pants, two pairs of socks, and fresh underwear, his belly full, and a roll stuffed in his pocket.

He made his way to the bridge he and Stein had been sleeping under the past couple of nights and, once there, the two of them unfused.

“Here,” Ronnie said, holding out the roll to the other man.

Stein gave him a grateful smile, taking it.

“Sorry it isn’t more.”

“Not to worry,” Stein said easily, though Ronnie noticed the small tremor in his voice, the way his hand had shaken as he’d stretched it forward. “Some food and a couple hours as myself should do me some good.”

But whatever his words, they both knew perfectly well that Stein was far from healthy. Ronnie took a seat on a nearby concrete ledge, the supports for the bridge, inviting Stein to do the same. Taking a bite of the roll, the other half of Firestorm followed his lead.

“I…” Ronnie hesitated. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but… what actually happened? At the army base?” Almost unconsciously, his hand moved toward his middle, remembering where the pain had originated from. He was still feeling Stein’s pain, even though his own had long since healed. But however much it had hurt, he still had no idea of what had caused his agony.

Stein paused, lowering his hand to his lap. It took a moment, before he responded. “How much… how much of it did you experience?” he asked, equally hesitant.

He looked slightly queasy, and Ronnie mentally chastised himself for asking before Stein had finished eating. Still, the question had been asked now.

Ronnie shrugged. “Just a bit less then you did,” he said, trying to keep his tone casual. “It was cold, and the pain came and went.”

Stein frowned ever so slightly, almost a wince. “I… I supposed we should discuss exactly what happened.” He didn’t seem like he wanted to, but it had been well over a week already and any information about what they were running from would be helpful. Ronnie didn’t interrupt, or stop him.

After a pensive moment, Stein finally spoke.

“It was the army who wanted Firestorm’s power, as I’m sure you know, but it was really mostly one man. General Eiling. I… I’m not sure how he…he discovered what Firestorm is capable of, but he wanted to replicate it. Wanted to create soldiers who could blast through entire armies on their own.” He paused, possibly to gather his thoughts and muster his strength, possibly because he’d felt Ronnie’s shock and horror at the idea.

“He took some of my blood, and what little research I had on me at the time,” Stein continued, “but I don’t believe he has enough information to create his own Firestorm.” He paused, swallowed. “I didn’t tell him anything.” He paused again.

A minute passed, then another, with Stein staring off into the distance, his fingers clenched around the half-eaten roll still in his hand.

Ronnie felt sick, with dread and horror and fear. He felt concern, some sort of after-the-fact sympathy for what Stein had gone through. Except no, it wasn’t sympathy, it was empathy: Ronnie literally felt what the other man was feeling at all times. More nausea inducing feelings, echoing Ronnie’s own: dread and terror and revulsion. (Or maybe it was Martin’s feelings that Ronnie was echoing, and not the other way around.)

The idea of what had been done to Stein (to both of them) was _wrong_.

“You…” Ronnie wet his lips. “You don’t have to say any more.” He’d learned enough, about who was after them and what they wanted. Stein didn’t need to describe how he’d been tortured as well.

Stein paused, looked for a moment as if he might argue, but then subsided. He glanced down at the roll in his hand, as though just remembering it was there.

“I…” he started to say. “If it were to happen again…”

Ronnie felt even worse (if that were at all possible) at the idea. He swallowed back his fear. He wanted to say it wouldn’t, wanted to declare loudly that neither of them would ever let that happen, that Firestorm was powerful enough now, so long as they stuck together, to avoid it. But the words wouldn’t come.

“I know,” he said instead, somber and heavy. But he didn’t urge Stein to speak, didn’t ask any more questions about what had happened with Eiling in that freezing room. He couldn’t stop picturing Stein the way he’d seen him before the rescue: slumped over, barely conscious in the chair he was chained to.

Silence fell between them.

* * *

 

“I’ve never been to Texas,” Ronnie said absentmindedly. They’d been practicing their flying, and Firestorm now sat on the edge of an abandoned bridge, watching the sunset.

_“I have,”_ Stein told him. _“A career as a professor does allow for a bit of travel on occasion.”_

“Any recommendations?” Ronnie asked, joking. He was feeling particularly melancholy just then, missing Central City, missing Caitlin and Cisco, missing the life he’d left behind, and his mood was wearing off on the professor as well.

Stein uttered a small sound of amusement. _“At the moment? Anywhere warm,”_ he said, slightly bitterly.

Ronnie snorted, and called on their fire as the sun sank below the horizon.

_“Should we head back then?”_ Stein asked, but there was no motivation in his tone.

With a sigh, Ronnie stood. “Probably,” he agreed.

* * *

 

“What’cha got there?” The voice was rough and crude, indignant and expecting, but fortunately it wasn’t aimed at Martin. Unfortunately, that was because it was aimed at a young woman, back against the nearest wall.

This was the scene Martin had walked in on: the young woman, cowering against the wall; two thugs, angry and intimidating, towering over her. They’d boxed her in, willing to take what they wanted without permission, wanting to scare her, and there was nothing Martin could do about it.

Nothing he could do alone, anyway.

He turned. He’d only wandered a little way from Ronald, trying to keep his feet under him, testing his legs now that they were spending more and more time apart.

Ronald, whether worried about being apart, or picking up on his need to do something, was already quickly walking toward him.

“What’s going on?” the younger man asked as they neared each other.

“A young woman is in trouble,” Martin said quickly.

Ronald picked up on what he wanted to do instantly. “But, Firestorm…”

“We can’t stay in this city forever.”

Ronald paused for the briefest of moments, then nodded in agreement. He quickly continued in the direction Martin had come from.

“Hey!” he called out.

One of the thugs had grabbed the woman’s arm, and she was cringing under his grip.

“Mind your own business,” the leader sneered at Ronald.

“Why don’t you do the same?” Martin suggested angrily, raising his voice as he stepped up next to Firestorm’s other half.

The thug turned his sneer onto him. “You wanna be next old man?” he asked disdainfully.

“I suggest you leave. Now,” Ronald said strongly.

“Oh yeah? What’cha gonna do about it?”

And Ronald grinned, pleased and expectant and, if Martin was being honest, a bit maliciously. One of the thugs looked around uncertainly, as if sensing that Martin and Ronald knew something that he didn’t.

“Ready, Professor?” Ronald asked, moving his arm and twisting his wrist so his hand was palm up between the two of them.

“Of course,” Martin agreed. He took the offered hand.

Becoming Firestorm was so natural now, so easy. It took no time at all, there was no more hesitation involved.

The backup thug’s eyes widened as he cursed wildly, then bolted. The leader stuck around for a moment, until Firestorm threw a fireball from one hand to the other. Seeing that was enough to unfreeze him from his terror, and he scrambled away, stumbling and shrieking. The young woman wasn’t far behind them. She threw a glance their way, half grateful, half scared, scooped her purse up off the pavement, and hurriedly walked away.

In the silence of the alley, they let their flames die. There was no need to discuss that they needed to leave now: they both knew it perfectly well.

“How about those recommendations, Professor?” Ronald asked, turning back towards where he’d stashed their backpack.

Martin snorted humorlessly. _“I suppose we should leave the state entirely,”_ he said. There was no regret in his tone over what they had done, just weariness.

Ronald clearly felt the same. He knelt down, shoving their blanket into the backpack. “Should we… leave the country?” he asked.

Martin paused. _“I… would rather not,”_ he admitted. _“We would stick out, in a non-English speaking country. Perhaps Canada, in the summer, but…”_

“Yeah,” Ronald agreed. “I don’t really want to either.” He shouldered the backpack, standing. “East or west then?”

_“Why don’t you decide this time?”_ Martin offered.

Ronald hesitated, glancing upward. They called on their fire again, rising quickly above the city. Making a last-minute decision, the younger man turned them west, and flew toward the setting sun.

* * *

 

_“I’ve been thinking,”_ Stein said, _“about how Eiling discovered that Firestorm even existed in the first place.”_

“Hmm?” Ronnie hummed half-heartedly, not really paying attention. He was flipping through a newspaper he’d found, searching for anything that mentioned the army, or a flying man on fire. “I thought you said the army had always been interested in your research?”

_“In my research, yes,”_ Stein agreed. _“But Eiling knew that the FIRESTORM matrix had been infused in a living person – in me.”_

“Yeah?” Ronnie asked vaguely, flipping the page.

_“Ronald,”_ Stein said, softly but firmly.

Ronnie folded up the newspaper. In truth, he’d thought much more about how to handle Eiling than about how Eiling had discovered Firestorm. What did it matter? Eiling knew about them now, and they had to focus on that instead.

“There’s no mention of anything weird in Dallas,” he said, ignoring the odd look a woman walking by threw their way.

_“That is good news,”_ Stein allowed, _“but what I’m saying,_ Ronald _, is that excluding the two of us, there were only four people who knew about Firestorm.”_

That caught Ronnie’s attention, and he sat up straighter, felt his stomach drop. “No,” he responded immediately, shaking his head. “If you think Caitlin or Cisco…” It was unthinkable.

_“There were only four people,”_ Stein repeated firmly. _“One of them–”_

Ronnie shook his head again. “No. Eiling’s with the military. He could’ve… could’ve seen something on camera, could have known what happened during our missing month. Maybe he knew all along and was just waiting for us to separate.”

_“Except if he had been watching us, surely he would have known better than to let you near me?”_ Stein countered. _“Clearly he didn’t have a clear view of what Firestorm is capable of. Which leaves…”_

“None of my friends ratted us out to the _military_ ,” Ronnie repeated strongly. “And I seriously doubt you’re considering your wife would have done it either. End of story.”

Stein subsided, but Ronnie could feel that he hadn’t convinced the older man, not one bit. But he trusted Caitlin and Cisco and Dr. Wells. The conversation only served to remind him of how much he missed home, how much he missed _them_. The thought that any one of them could have been responsible for his current situation…

“We owe all four of them our lives,” he reminded Stein. “All four of them came to rescue us.”

* * *

 

“Hey! You!”

Ronald flinched, glancing upward at the figure standing in the alley entrance. Instinctively, he reached for their flames, but Martin held him back.

_“Not here,”_ he reminded the other man.

Ronald didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Martin could feel the change: he was no longer reaching for Firestorm’s nuclear power. Instead, Ronald hastily placed a hand on the edge of the dumpster they were digging through, vaulting out of it and onto the alley floor below.

With the man behind them shouting curses, Ronald sprinted away, keeping careful hold of the bag in his hands. Only once they’d turned several times did he slow down.

“Don’t know why he’s so upset,” Ronald muttered under his breath as he finally stopped. “He was throwing it away.”

_“Indeed,”_ Martin murmured.

“Want some?” Ronald asked.

Martin hesitated. After three weeks, and careful time management, he’d probably spent around forty-eight hours as himself. He could eat solid food just fine now, and walk around for a couple hours without collapsing, but…

“There’s gotta be like twenty bagels in here, Professor,” Ronald said, countering the arguments that he hadn’t yet voiced. “No way we’re going to be able to eat them all before they spoil.”

_“Very well then,”_ Martin agreed. They pulled apart without further conversation.

On his own two feet once more, Martin accepted the bagel Ronald had handed him, as the younger man grabbed one for himself as well.

Silently, they made their way back to where they had slept the past two nights, eating their (slightly stale) breakfast side by side.

* * *

 

In an abandoned junk yard, just far enough south from Roswell, New Mexico, that no one would notice them, Ronald aimed a fireball at a car in the distance. It missed entirely, flying above the car he’d been aiming for and hitting a bus in the distance.

“Where would we even find radioactive waste?” he asked.

They weren’t just practicing Firestorm’s abilities, but also discussing them, going into the science of what they were capable of.

_“Well,”_ Martin answered thoughtfully, _“all high-level radioactive waste in the United States was_ supposed _to be stored in one location.”_

“Yucca Mountain in Nevada,” Ronald finished for him, readying another fireball.

_“Yes. Except, ignoring the fact that it’s not even operational, I believe the whole area is federal land. Belonging to the Air Force.”_

Ronald flinched ever so slightly at the words, and his next fireball missed as well. “So we’re not going there then,” he said, faux-casually.

_“No.”_

“What about low-level waste?”

Martin had to think about that, but most of his career had been spent researching nuclear energy, in one form or another – he just had to remember all the information he’d absorbed over the years.

_“I believe there are several sites in the States,”_ he said. _“There’s a company called Energy Solutions – I believe it has two facilities, one in Utah, the other in South Carolina. US Ecology also handles radioactive waste, but the only facility I recall is one in Washington. Waste Control Specialists have the licenses to handle most types of low-level waste. They’re back in Texas._

“All privately owned?” Ronald asked, thoughtfully.

_“Does it matter?”_ Martin countered, pessimism rearing forward. _“These sites will have high security – otherwise the government wouldn’t allow them to operate in the first place. We’re never getting close enough.”_

“I thought you _wanted_ to test our ability to absorb radiation?”

_“Yes, but I see no reason to risk our lives in the process!”_

“What then, intercept a truck on its way in?” Ronald’s tone was skeptical, and he lobbed another fireball that hit his target after he spoke.

Martin watched the sparks dissipate against the rusted metal, the car unable to tip over at the force of the blow because of the mountain of other scrap behind it.

_“Perhaps we should focus on the source of the waste, rather than its end location,”_ he suggested.

“Who generates radioactive waste besides nuclear power plants?” Ronald asked. He grabbed a scrap of metal off the ground, and they both turned up their power, attempting to melt it. “Hospitals?”

_“If we found a hospital that practices radiation therapy, we wouldn’t even need to deal with waste.”_

“Yeah, but hospitals are guarded too. Maybe we’d be able to sneak in, but I’m pretty sure someone would notice us using the equipment.”

In their hand was a puddle of molten iron, rust and dirt – slag – floating on top of it. Ronald tilted his palm, and watched the bright orange stream of metal lose its color as it fell to the ground. “We could make a real killing as a metal worker,” he said absentmindedly during Martin’s silence.

_“Universities occasionally have equipment capable of generating radiation.”_

“But the gist is, we’re not going to get near anything anytime soon,” Ronald said, as the metal solidified on the ground before them.

_“No,”_ Martin allowed. _“I suppose not.”_

* * *

 

It was an unseasonably cold night in Albuquerque, though thankfully Firestorm’s inner warmth and the coat they’d managed to get in Texas kept them relatively warm. The other homeless people gathered in the abandoned building with them weren’t so lucky – Ronnie noticed one family (father, teenager, and younger child) huddling together for warmth.

He looked down as his hands, which weren’t even numb in the below freezing temperatures, despite their lack of gloves. “We could help them,” he said. He kept his voice low, but didn’t whisper. He’d stopped hiding his conversations with Stein a while ago.

_“If they don’t run screaming,”_ Martin replied pessimistically, but he didn’t seem opposed to the idea. _“It could only be the once, though.”_

“We’d leave tomorrow, I know,” Ronnie said, “but…” he glanced up from his hands to look at the small family again, at the woman curled into her winter coat in a fortress of cardboard boxes, at the two men searching for scraps of trash to keep the measly fire they had going.

Inside, he felt Stein’s skepticism melt away slightly at the sight. _“Helping these people,”_ he decided firmly, _“would be worth it.”_

Ronnie agreed – it was just a matter of finding the right way to do so.

Approaching the men first, Ronnie walked slowly and carefully, keeping their hands where everyone could see them.

“I could help with that,” he offered cautiously, nodding towards the fire, barely flickering.

The men looked him over, no doubt taking in the fact that he looked as homeless as the rest of them. “Sure, man,” one of them said. “You got somethin’ in tha’ backpack a’ yours?”

“Not… exactly,” Ronnie said. He held out his hands in front of him, towards the two men. “It’s a little… strange.”

The men exchanged glances, but then looked back expectantly.

_“Now or never, I suppose,”_ Stein said.

They called on their nuclear fire, carefully, cautiously. While before they’d tried to make their flames as large as possible, tested their capabilities, now they tried to keep them small and faint. Hands and head became engulfed in gentle flames, licking softly at the cold winter air.

One man jumped back, swearing. The other flinched violently.

“It’s…” Ronnie tried to think of something to say. “I just… want to help you stay warm,” he ended up saying. He glanced around at the others in the warehouse with them, at the family (at the children). His little act had gotten everyone’s attention, his light casting shadows through the open space. “Everyone.”

The men followed his gaze. One looked like he was about to say something, but the other put a hand on his arm, holding him back.

“I can understand that,” he said warily, studying Firestorm. “It’s safe?”

“It’s… it’s fire,” Ronnie said. “It can burn. But, yeah, it’s safe.”

“And warm,” the man added. He himself seemed to be warming up to the idea of another human being on fire.

Ronnie flared his flames, raising the temperature. “I can make it warmer,” he promised, projecting his voice to the others. Nobody came any closer, but nobody ran away either.

“You sure I’m not hallucinatin’?” the second man asked cautiously.

“I thought the same thing,” Ronnie offered, remembering those first few confusing days, so long ago now it seemed, “but it’s real.”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” the first man asked.

Ronnie hesitated.

_“There’s no real harm in telling them,”_ Stein said simply, though caution still underlay his tone.

He offered a grim smile. “Army thought I would make a great weapon. I disagreed.”

His words actually got the second man to relax, and he nodded in agreement. “I can get on board with that.”

The first man wandered away, crouching down to speak to the family first, then the woman on her own. The warehouse was already warmer from Firestorm’s efforts, but the closer they were the better off they’d be. Ronnie stayed carefully still, trying not to spook anyone, and let the men do the convincing for him.

* * *

 

The two men with them had given their names as Peter and John. The woman was Wanda, the father Mike. The teenager was Troy, the younger kid Jordan. Fake names or not, Ronnie and Martin didn’t much care – he’d given their name as Robbie, close enough to his own that he would turn at the sound of it.

They’d spent the night huddled in a circle around Ronnie, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not. It was weird, being the focal point of everyone’s attention, the fire around which they gathered, especially after weeks of running and hiding and avoiding attention. But it was also nice, to talk to other people again besides just Stein.

Morning came slowly, but with it came the sun and its warmth. The few windows still with glass in them glinted brightly, and the warehouse looked different in the light. Mike shook his children awake. John roused Peter. Wanda stared silently out the window, watching the morning come.

Ronnie stood.

“Hey now,” Peter offered. “Why don’t ‘cha get some sleep? You’ve been up all night.”

He shook his head. He was exhausted, but for the first time in a long time, it was mostly the good type of exhausted, after a night filled with pleasant conversation and good company. “I can’t stay,” he said simply.

But Peter shook his head too. “Stay,” he countered.

“No one’s gonna rat you out, kid,” John added. “No one here at least.”

Ronnie glanced around at Wanda, who gave him a solemn nod, at Mike, who smiled warmly. At Troy and Jordan – the older of whom had already adopted a skeptical outlook about life, but both of whom looked at him gratefully.

_“Ronald…”_ Stein cautioned him, but Ronnie caught the exhaustion in the professor’s words. Bone deep and weary, not just from one sleepless night, but from a tumultuous month. Even so, the idea of trusting someone again, of trusting these strangers, felt too good to be true.

“I…” he started hopelessly.

“Look, we gotta stick together, don’t we?” John asked. “You’re safe here, kid.”

“Well, safe as the rest of us can be,” Peter added.

“But you might not be,” Ronnie countered. Conflicting emotions warred within him, but he just wanted to _stop_. Wanted to stop running, wanted to stop hiding, wanted to go home. That wasn’t an option, but maybe staying here was.

“We don’t tell anyone, no one will find out,” Mike said simply.

Ronnie hesitated a moment longer, but… “Alright,” he said tiredly, voicing a hesitant agreement. “Alright.” He extinguished their flames, the professor reluctantly going along with him. “Just a couple nights,” he said, sinking to the floor in exhaustion.

They fell asleep to the sight of someone else watching out for them, and a feeling of safety they hadn’t had in far too long.

* * *

 

A couple of nights turned into a few days, which turned into a week, and before Martin knew it they’d spent ten days in one abandoned warehouse in Albuquerque, with a small community of the homeless of the city. Far too long for them to have remained in any one place, as he had mentioned several times now.

For the moment, it was midday, and they were alone in the warehouse – though there was no telling when one of their new acquaintances might return.

_“It is time we move on, Ronald,”_ he said firmly.

“Look, no one’s gonna mention anything. No one knows we’re here. We’re safe, for once, can’t you just… just…” Ronald’s words died in his throat. “Don’t you think you might just be… overreacting, a bit, because of what happened?”

Mentally, Martin gaped, temporarily lost for words.

“We haven’t seen any evidence that Eiling’s even looking for us, not since we left,” Ronald continued.

_“Just because we have managed to remain one step ahead of the man so far does not mean we should get complacent!”_ Martin said indignantly.

“But that’s my point – we’re _several_ steps ahead of him. He probably doesn’t even know we’re in New Mexico, and there’re only six people here who’ve even seen us.”

_“And how do we know that we do not give off some sort of energy Eiling can track?”_

“You were pretty convinced that we weren’t radioactive.”

_“I was convinced that we are not_ dangerous _,”_ Martin countered. _“That does not mean that we do not give off an energy signature of some sort – even if it is only every time we merge and unmerge.”_

“However little we know about Firestorm, Eiling knows even less.”

_“Except that he has access to equipment that we don’t. He has funds, and time.”_

Ronald shook his head. “You’re worrying too much.”

_“You’re not worrying enough,”_ Martin interrupted before the young man could say any more.

A knock on one of the side doors stopped the argument in its tracks, and Wanda slipped inside with a grin.

“Brought lunch,” she said easily.

Ronald turned to her. “I’ve told you, you don’t have to share.”

“Nah,” she said dismissively. “It was easy pickings today. Don’t want it to go to waste.” She handed a bag to them.

The other temporary residents of their little area had decided that they would help keep Ronald (and, by extension, Martin) hidden by sharing their meals. Payment, they had all decided, for keeping them warm. None of them seemed to doubt that the military was looking for them and none, Martin had to admit, seemed inclined to help the military find them.

And it was hard to turn down that sort of generosity, so though Ronald had snuck out several times over the past week and a half, he had also largely accepted the help.

But they could not rely solely on the kindness of six random strangers wandering the streets of Albuquerque.

_“No,”_ Martin said firmly, as Ronald accepted the bag of food. _“We’re not doing this again.”_ All too often over the past few days, whenever he’d tried to discuss something serious with Ronald, they had been interrupted and the conversation halted before they could come to any sort of agreement.

Martin was fed up with remaining as Firestorm, with being stuck where he was, unable to interact with the world. He was cooped up, confined, even if it was within Firestorm’s safety, and his one outlet with the world had returned to ignoring him around other people once more.

They were having this discussion.

Ronald tensed, but still ignored him.

_“They already know you can light on fire,”_ Martin half snapped. _“What’s talking to yourself compared to that?”_

“Thanks,” Ronald said pointedly, grinning even though Martin could very well feel how forced the expression was.

“No problem,” Wanda replied, settling down in her usual spot to eat her own lunch.

“I’m gonna head up to the roof,” Ronald continued, and Martin could hear the tightness in his voice as the young man restrained his own irritation, though he doubted it would be noticeable to anyone else.

Finally.

Wanda waved in acknowledgement, already eating, and without further hesitation Ronald took them to the top of the building. The stairs were rickety and unsteady, but the roof itself was solid, and they weren’t exactly worried about falling.

“You’re overreacting,” Ronald stated firmly, clearly irritated, as the door shut behind them. Out of earshot from anyone else, he could finally let himself feel angry, and his emotions mingled with Martin’s own.

_“Am I?”_ he criticized harshly, not quite a yell. _“Perhaps you are not reacting enough!”_

There was a sudden tug, a slight disconnect as their anger swelled, the briefest sensation of pulling apart. Both of them fell silent instantly, mentally settling themselves. It was impossible to say who had initiated it – it very well could have been both of them, simultaneously and unconsciously reacting to their argument – but they’d almost unfused. Or rather, they’d almost _started_ to unfuse.

It was the first time that had ever happened, that they’d gotten so irritated with the other, had felt the need to separate and walk away, and Firestorm had reacted to that.

He and Ronald didn’t know each other. They’d been thrown together, had cooperated for mutual survival, but they weren’t friends, and any fission between them, it seemed, would only make their combined form that much more unstable.

_“This… partnership, for lack of a better term,”_ Martin said, slowly and cautiously after a moment had passed, _“clearly works better when we are not at odds.”_

“Yeah,” Ronald agreed, glancing down at his hands. He sat them down against a wall, protected from the wind, and opened the bag Wanda had given them. She had an in with one of the employees of a McDonald’s down the street, who gave her canceled and poorly made orders that would otherwise have been thrown away or eaten by another employee. This time it was a chicken sandwich and a large fry – still slightly warm.

Ronald pulled the sandwich from the bag.

“Look,” he said, clearly trying to remain calm as well. “We’ve got a good thing here. This is as safe as we’ll ever be – we’re hidden, we’ve got company and food and a place to sleep every night.”

And Martin could understand that. This sort of life was as settled as they were ever going to get, at least while Eiling was still looking for them.

_“Alright,”_ he said, thinking logically. _“Say that we_ can _trust these people, say that they do keep our secret, and word never gets out. How long can we stay here?”_

Ronald didn’t respond immediately, but Martin felt the instinctual surge of emotions that was his reaction to the idea – that sudden and uncontrollable split-second reaction that had nothing to do with your conscious mind and everything to do with your subconscious. It told him exactly how Ronald felt about _that_ idea.

_“Exactly,”_ he continued. _“We’ve been so focused on running, on making sure we eat, and sleep–”_

“And heal,” Ronald interjected, reminding Martin of his own, still less than stellar, condition.

_“And heal,”_ he agreed, _“that we haven’t considered our future. Are we going to hide forever?”_

“You mean, are we going to fight back?”

There was a heavy silence at the question. Ronald set down the still wrapped sandwich on the roof next to them. Unlike their disagreement that had almost caused them to unfuse (but even then, they’d been in some sort of agreement, starting and stopping the process simultaneously and together), now Martin got an inkling of what Ronald was planning.

Together, they called on their flames.

They were quite good at modifying the intensity of it these days, controlling the height of the flames flickering over their fingers and the heat that flowed off of them. Ronald moved their hand over their lunch, warming it ever so slightly.

“We’re going to need more than just heat, to go up against bullets and missiles,” Ronald said somberly.

_“And learning what exactly we’re capable of might just entice Eiling even further,”_ Martin admitted reluctantly. _“But, given our options…”_

“What choice do we have?” Ronald finished for him.

Given that one option meant staying away from their homes – their loved ones – for the rest of their lives, neither of them felt it was much of a choice.

_“We’ll find another junk yard,”_ Martin suggested, _“or somewhere isolated.”_

“And maybe a source of radioactivity,” Ronald agreed. “We can set out in the morning.”

They quenched their flames, and Ronald picked up the sandwich, beginning to unwrap it. Even as they spoke of their plans, Martin could tell there was an uneasy feeling in both of their guts. Firestorm was powerful, there was no doubt about that, but how many trained soldiers would Eiling have at his disposal, how many weapons?

And even if they could stand their ground against that, physically, could they mentally? Going up against the army, bullets flying through the air as they threw fireballs to defend themselves – the idea of it didn’t even feel real, like something out of a science fiction novel. It was nothing Martin had ever prepared for, not how he’d pictured his life.

“Stop it,” Ronald said, not harshly but firmly. “We can’t think like that.”

Martin hadn’t said anything, but apparently, he hadn’t needed to. Ronald had picked up on his doubts and anxieties, his fear.

_“I know,”_ he said, but the thought of coming face to face with Eiling again, even if it wasn’t in that damp, dark room in which he’d been chained…

_No_ , Martin told himself. Ronald was right, he couldn’t let his thoughts go that way. He cast about mentally for a distraction.

_“We know we can get hot enough to melt steel,”_ he said, which was no small feat, _“how do you think we’ll fare against bullets?”_

* * *

 

They woke slowly the next morning, moving carefully and cautiously around each other (so to speak). They both remembered their argument from the previous day, and how they’d almost unfused. Whether or not they wanted to unfuse wasn’t an issue – it was whether or not they could risk it that was the problem.

Neither one of them was likely to raise their voices to the other anytime soon, Martin figured. It was another hurdle to overcome in their partnership, just another obstacle in their path. They’d managed so far by focusing only on the present and immediate future, living day to day however they could, but as they’d discussed yesterday, neither one of them wanted to turn that into their long-term plan.

They needed to start thinking about the future.

When Martin had told Ronald that they’d needed to leave, when he’d mentioned that Eiling wouldn’t just target them, but also their loved ones, they hadn’t stopped to think about it. They’d just left.

And Martin wasn’t regretting that decision now – if they’d stayed, Eiling would have likely gotten his hands on them already – but at the time… At the time, he hadn’t exactly been thinking straight. He and Ronald both had been tired, and hungry, and in pain. It’d been a hastily made decision, and they hadn’t taken the time to think about what it meant.

Except now… Well, he and Ronald weren’t at odds, exactly – they’d both agreed they wanted the same thing – but they’d also both been made aware of how much their survival depended on their cooperation, and perhaps for the first time, they were wondering how long they would be able to stay on the same page.

They’d argued before, quite a bit when they were still unaware they could unfuse, but while they’d gotten along thus far since escaping Eiling’s grasp, that was no guarantee of future success.

“I’d be able to feel your doubt from a mile away,” Ronald muttered under his breath, shoving their few belongings in Mr. Ramon’s backpack.

_Pardon me for worrying about our future,_ Martin almost said, but that… wouldn’t exactly help things any.

_“Apologies for being so morose,”_ he said instead, though perhaps he didn’t entirely manage to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. No, that wasn’t helping either. He tried to calm himself. _“Are we still agreed upon our immediate plans?”_ he asked.

Ronald, straightening as he threw on the backpack, nodded ever so slightly, and made his way to the others to say goodbye.

Martin tuned out as he did so. These people didn’t even know he existed, however much Ronald and them had grown fond of each other, and he had no need to hear their farewells.

Outside, they ignited their flames, and pushed downward at the air around them as the others watched them go.

Together they flew, up, up, up. Higher and higher above the city as it shrank beneath them, until they were above the scant cloud layer, where the air was thinner but they were much less likely to be spotted. And Firestorm seemed much hardier, anyway, than the average person. They noticed the change in air quality, but it wasn’t really detrimental. The temperature, of course, was not an issue either.

No, their biggest problem when flying lay in being spotted. A blazing fireball in the sky, flying at night was definitely not an option, but flying during the day wasn’t much better. They had to be wary of people looking up (not that they could do anything about it), of birds in the sky, of helicopters and airplanes.

Like the one flying toward them right now.

“That’s… not a passenger plane,” Ronald said, horror dawning on the both of them as they took in the object moving through the sky towards them.

_“No,”_ Martin agreed, feeling the cold grip of fear in his gut. It was a fighter jet, a military aircraft. Whether or not Eiling was behind it didn’t really matter in that moment – there was no way it hadn’t spotted them.

There was no need for words. Ronald turned, oriented himself in the air, and they poured on every ounce of speed they could muster.


	2. A Tentative Friendship

Ronnie flew. He flew as fast as he ever had, burning brightly, even as he knew there was little hope of him ever out-flying the fighter jet behind them. He wasn’t even that much more agile than it – he could turn on a dime, sure, but the plane following them was quick to change directions as well, and its speed after turning more than made up for anything it lost.

Even through his panic, through the surge of adrenaline that cleared his mind and narrowed his focus down to almost nothing but thoughts of escape, some part of Ronnie’s mind couldn’t help but muse on the absurdity of the situation: he was one half of a nuclear powered amalgam, capable of flight thanks to the nuclear fire within them, and he was currently trying to escape a fighter jet in the skies above New Mexico that had been likely sent after them by a power-hungry general in the United States Army.

Three months ago, he would have laughed at anyone who had suggested even part of the story was remotely possible.

But it was, and right now Ronnie couldn’t afford to focus on anything but escaping the enemies behind them.

_“We can’t go back to the city,”_ Stein was already saying, _“they’d see us land, clear as day.”_

Ronnie hadn’t been planning on diving down back among Albuquerque’s skyscrapers again, but he hadn’t really been planning anything else either. Moving had been the only thought on his mind. Now, after the initial panic, he allowed himself a moment to think even as he poured on the speed.

“You don’t think they’re going to try and fire?” he asked, raising his voice over the wind rushing past, and the sound of the fighter jet behind them.

He could feel Stein’s denial before the man even spoke.

_“Eiling still wants us alive,”_ he said, _“but they’re no doubt tracking us. Whenever we do land…”_

There would be people waiting for them. There were probably people waiting for them now, following the jet’s movements from the ground.

“Then we need to land somewhere they can’t follow!” Ronnie said over the wind.

Again, he could feel Stein’s opinion before he spoke, his agreement with Ronnie’s words, but this time the man took a moment to think things through.

_“Not a city,”_ he said after a few seconds. _“We could lose the jet easily, but then they’d know where to look.”_

Ronnie kept flying, the thin air starting to get to him. He was flying faster than they ever had before, exerting more effort than he was used to, and by now the plane had almost caught up to them entirely. They must have left Albuquerque far behind by now, but he didn’t even know which direction they were going.

He looked around wildly, spotting the rising sun on his left (which meant north – he was headed north, not that it mattered), the earth down below.

It was different, thinking three-dimensionally. They hadn’t really gone up or down yet, since they’d spotted the jet, and they were still above the cloud layer. Or rather, where the cloud layer had been – Ronnie had left the deceptively fluffy whiteness behind him a few seconds ago. Now he could see straight to the ground, so far below them. Even at their speed, he caught a glimpse of the houses and buildings and roads, humanity enforcing their will on the environment around them, so tiny from such a distance. He caught a glimpse of the great desert, stretching out around them, shades of brown, flat and vast.

He caught a glimpse of treetops off in the distance.

“What about a forest?” he suggested loudly. Panic had the both of them speaking quickly, their minds whirring frantically as they searched for a solution.

_“Far from any road,”_ Martin hastily agreed.

Except, Ronnie realized as they neared the trees, these forests weren’t like what he was used to back east, in Central City, or even like the thick forests of California, where he’d grown up. There were plenty of trees, yes, but also plenty of open space. More patches of dirt, clearings between the trees, than Ronnie had hoped for.

There wasn’t much of a choice though. They’d barely been in the air a few minutes, and already Albuquerque was far behind them, but the fighter jet was not. In fact, it was so much faster than them that it flew over them as Ronnie angled downward towards the mountains, swooping past in a blaze of speed and making a lazy arc as it circled back around.

A vision of Stein, chained and trembling, entered his mind, but Ronnie pushed it aside. Now wasn’t the time for panic. Panic could wait. Right now, they needed to get out of sight.

He took them lower, skimming the pine forests below him, rising and falling with the land and the mountains. He kept an eye out on the nearby roads, moving closer and closer to the ground, slowing as he did so.

Finding a suitably thick and isolated area of forest he dove head-first, flipped around quickly and pushed backwards to slow, then stumbled to his knees as he landed and the flames died.

He was startled to find himself breathing heavily, their backpack heavy on his shoulders as his chest heaved in and out, gulping down huge breaths of fresh air. Warm fresh air – aside from being in New Mexico (probably? How far had they gone?), Firestorm’s landing had heated the area around them.

The dirt was hard beneath his knees, and the twinkling sun overhead, blazing down cheerfully at them from the blue sky dotted with clouds, clashed violently with his barely contained panic and fear. The roar of a jet engine caused him to jerk his head upward suddenly, and he watched the jet pass over his head again.

_“They will have seen us land,”_ Martin said quickly, panicked, urging Ronnie onward.

He could feel the professor’s attempt to stand, and followed along with the sensation, stumbling to his feet, heading deeper into the forest, away from the clearing he’d used to land. He walked at first, maybe ten, twenty feet, then started jogging as his breath returned to him, before breaking out into a run altogether.

His mind whirred with possibilities, with potential dangers, plans, fears, and hopes. He wasn’t used to this, wasn’t used to the running. Wasn’t used to the danger, the actual risk of being kidnapped and tortured.

He barely noticed the green of the trees, the logs and sticks and rocks that he avoided beneath him. He had no goal in mind, no concrete destination. Only to move, and move quickly.

Stein, too, seemed to have been unprepared for the sudden danger. They’d taken off that morning (a few minutes ago, Ronnie corrected himself, but it already seemed like lifetimes) a little tense, perhaps, from their argument, but generally calm. Determined, to find a way to stop running, to fight back, to learn more about what Firestorm was capable of.

Now they were literally running, through a forest some distance from Albuquerque, though where Ronnie didn’t know exactly, and Stein was as silent as he was, mental state somewhere between panic and focus.

Ronnie just ran. He ran, and he ran. Around trees, past boulders, sprinting along the edges of clearings and over fallen logs. He ran until it seemed he couldn’t run anymore, and then he ran a little further. But the brief, quick flight had already tired him out, and he wasn’t exactly running on optimal nutrition and a good night’s sleep.

Even if Firestorm’s endurance was higher than the average person’s, it had been a stressful month, and it was their combined form that had been skipping meals and sleeping lightly anyway, not just Ronnie and Martin themselves.

Eventually, he had to stop. He slowed to a walk, moved a few more paces, and then stopped altogether. Bending over, hands on his knees, Ronnie felt the weight of his backpack once more, the ache of his legs from the effort. He trembled from the exertion, chest heaving frantically as he gulped at the air.

“I… I can’t,” he managed to get out between breaths.

Stein was silent for a moment, but his emotions weren’t judgmental. Rather, they were understanding even through the fear overriding everything, and Ronnie felt a little bit better knowing that the other man wasn’t expecting him to push through it and keep moving. It wasn’t an uncomfortable or awkward silence either, more like the other man was simply waiting for Ronnie to recover, giving him his metaphorical space.

_“There’s water, in the backpack,”_ Martin said a moment later.

The statement brought Ronnie’s attention to how dry his mouth was. He licked his lips, shifting to deposit the backpack on the ground in front of them.

“Thanks,” he breathed out, falling to his knees entirely next to it. He reached for the zipper, pulling it open, and grabbed one of the three water bottles they had stashed inside. Wrenching the lid off, he downed half of it before he took another breath.

_“I understand how thirsty we are…”_ Stein started to say in the pause.

Ronnie nodded. “I know,” he agreed. He took another small sip, then capped the bottle entirely. “There’s no telling when we’ll get out of these mountains.”

_“It would be best not to take flight for now, at least until we have a more concrete plan.”_

Right. They’d avoided capture so far, and the initial burst of panic was over. It was time for a plan.

“Do you think they’re still tracking us on the ground?” he asked, gazing upward through the trees.

_“I have no clue,”_ Stein said. _“This is not my area of expertise.”_

Despite himself, despite the circumstances – despite the tinge of fear in the professor’s tone – Ronnie let out a small huff of laughter. No, no it certainly wasn’t either of their areas of expertise. Running from a mad army general hellbent on using them to create the perfect weapon – no, it certainly wasn’t something either of them had any experience with either.

He let out another bark of laughter, a little hysterically perhaps.

_“Ronald…”_ Stein started, sounding concerned.

Ronnie took a breath, centering himself at the sound of his name. Now wasn’t the time to lose his grip.

“I don’t know,” he said, after taking another deep breath. “They could, track our heat signature or something, couldn’t they?”

_Perhaps you’ve watched too much TV.”_

“Some of its gotta be real, doesn’t it?”

He glanced upward again, and their conversation paused as they both listened for the sound of a jet engine overhead. There was nothing, but it didn’t mean they weren’t being tracked.

_“We know he couldn’t track us in the city,”_ Martin said after a moment. _“Otherwise there would have been no need to resort to such measures.”_

“That’s good to know,” Ronnie said sincerely. He shoved the water bottle back in the backpack, zipping it closed again, but didn’t move to return it to his back. Instead he shifted, stretching his legs out in front of him, getting off of his knees and as comfortable as he could be on the ground. “But he still saw us land, and I have no idea how far we’ve gone.”

‘We’ll have to move again soon,’ was what he was saying, though he made no effort to do so. His chest still rose and fell more heavily than usual, his lungs still straining for fresh air. His legs ached, unwilling to be moved from where they were stretched out in front of him.

Stein seemed to understand both what he was and wasn’t saying.

_“Let’s unfuse,”_ he started to say after a moment, but Ronnie’s instinctual repulsion to the idea stopped the professor mid-sentence.

He got the mental impression of the other man shaking his head.

_“Let’s unfuse,”_ Stein repeated, before Ronnie could say anything. _“I’ll keep watch while you grab a quick nap.”_

The idea _was_ pretty tempting, but more motivating at the moment was the fear of what could lay just beyond the trees, hidden in the woods and drawing ever closer.

_“We need to move,”_ Stein continued, clearly picking up on the fact that part of Ronnie was actually considering his terrible idea, _“and you can’t do so in your current condition.”_

“I wouldn’t say ‘can’t’,” Ronnie said stubbornly, though his legs felt like jelly. “Besides, I’m not sure I could sleep right now anyway.”

_“Then just rest,”_ Stein said. _“I’d offer to walk separately instead but…”_

“But Firestorm’s stronger than the both of us anyway,” Ronnie agreed. He felt his eyes closing slightly, and blinked himself back to awareness. He was more exhausted than he’d realized. “Alright,” he said. He stood, struggling to his feet, and let the other man go.

The brief moment when neither of them existed, when they were both nothing but pure energy, hovering in midair before their bodies could reform, was pure heaven. No aches, no pains, no fear or thirst or hunger. But then it was over, and Ronnie stood on shaky legs with the professor standing next to him.

“Rest,” Martin repeated, speaking aloud now.

Adrenaline still pumped through his system, Ronnie was pretty sure, but he could sit down for a while, at the very least, regain his strength somewhat.

“If I fall asleep,” he said, hobbling over to a tree and sitting with his back against the trunk, “one hour – no more.”

Stein nodded in agreement. “One hour,” he said. He stretched out his limbs, pacing a small circle around the backpack still on the ground, glancing through the trees, studying their surroundings.

Watching him as he did so, as the older man paused to glance upward, run a hand along a tree trunk, peer deeper into the forest, Ronnie was hit with the realization that they hadn’t unfused in almost two weeks – since before they’d made it to Albuquerque. No wonder the professor was so irritated with him.

Ronnie felt a pang of guilt at the thought, and Martin glanced over at him sharply as he did so, frowning.

Ronnie shook his head in answer to the unasked question, and let his eyes drift shut again, leaning his head back against the tree trunk.

* * *

He’d been right, earlier, in thinking that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the hour he spent simply sitting there, resting, was a big help. Ronnie could tell that it had been worth it as he stood, legs wobbly but holding firm.

“Thanks,” he said to Martin, who’d taken up a seat on the ground as well.

“My pleasure,” Stein returned sincerely, heaving himself upward with a wince as well. Ronnie could feel a faint ache from the older man’s knees, and the residual weakness that still hadn’t quite faded from the man’s torture session, on top of all of his own aches and pains.

But neither of them mentioned anything, and they reached for each other, and disappeared into Firestorm. Ronnie shouldered the backpack once more.

“Does it matter which direction?”

_“Away from the way we came, I suppose,”_ Stein said simply.

Ronnie nodded, and set off again. He didn’t run this time – slow and steady won the race, after all, and he was pretty sure he could get more distance if he didn’t waste all his energy on a futile sprint. He walked in silence instead, lacking the energy to speak, and Stein didn’t talk either. The landscape wasn’t exactly easy to navigate.

Trees in (near?) New Mexico evidently meant mountains, and though Ronald hadn’t really noticed the elevation changes during his mad sprint through the forest, he was noticing them now. Unlike the smooth desert they’d avoided, the land was far from flat. And, as he’d noticed from the air, the cover wasn’t great either. There were plenty of thick clusters of trees, but there was no canopy overhead, blocking out the light of the morning sun.

Morning. Only a couple of hours had passed since they’d taken flight outside an abandoned warehouse in the middle of downtown Albuquerque. Over a month had gone by without a sign of Eiling, without one hint of even a rumor as to what the general might have been up to, and now _this_. Ronnie recalled again with dread the sight of Stein chained to a chair.

As if sensing his mood ( _no,_ definitely _sensing his mood,_ Ronnie reminded himself), Martin spoke just then.

_“It was a stun baton,”_ he said somberly.

Ronnie’s mind drew a blank. “What?”

_“Eiling,”_ Stein replied. _“He had some sort of… of cattle prod. A stun baton. Taser. Something.”_

A few weeks ago, Ronnie had asked Stein about his imprisonment. He’d learned about who was after then, and what he wanted, and why he wanted it – even how much Eiling already had on them – but Stein hadn’t been able to bring himself to speak about the actual torture, and Ronnie hadn’t been willing to press.

“Oh,” he said softly, remembering the pain he’d felt. He could put it into context now, replaced the fire he’d imagined coursing through his veins with white-hot electricity. With an ever-worsening sense of dread, he pictured Stein chained down, staring defiantly as Eiling brandished his chosen weapon. Pictured the older man screaming. Pictured himself in Stein’s place.

_“I… I’m sorry,”_ Stein said, _“I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to imply that… that…”_

That they were about to be captured?

Ronnie shook his head, weaving his way around a clearing, staying in the shadows. “No,” he said. There was no need for Martin to apologize. “I should…” he hesitated, searching for the words. “It’s better, I guess, knowing what might… what might…”

_“That is not your future,”_ Stein said strongly.

“But knowing’s still better than… better than not,” Ronnie said.

Stein didn’t answer, but Ronnie could feel the older man’s complex mixture of emotions from the conversation. He sure was getting a lot better at parsing out emotional cues (his own included), now that he and Martin were in each other’s heads all the time.

The professor was feeling a small tinge of regret, a healthy portion of fear, concern (probably for Ronnie), a strong dose of determination, worry, dread, anticipation, and every other synonym that Ronnie could think of. He himself was filled with dread, but he took refuge in the other man’s determination.

Stein was determined not to get caught again, and maybe that stemmed from confidence in their abilities, maybe it was just because he was unwilling to contemplate the alternative, but he was determined nevertheless.

Of course, it was then, in the silence as their conversation ended, as they mustered their mental strength, that Ronnie heard the sound of rushing footsteps in the distance.

He froze, listening closely.

Stein parsed together what the sounds were before he did: people running, running quickly, and running toward them.

_“Run!”_ Martin said hastily, panic overcoming him.

Ronnie didn’t think, he bolted. Firestorm was stronger than your average person, but his hearing wasn’t really any better: there were shouts from behind them as Ronnie ran, because they had only just missed the soldiers Eiling had sent after them, and those men had no doubt caught sight of Firestorm through the trees.

_Shit_ , Ronnie thought to himself as he ran. Should he light their flames? Should he just run? He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to react. Didn’t want to face down armed soldiers, regardless of what he was capable of.

_“They’ll want us alive,”_ Stein reminded him. The panic in his tone had calmed somewhat, but it was still undeniably present. _“And taking flight would only make us that much more noticeable.”_

But Ronnie had an idea. “What if…” he panted out while sprinting, “this is all their guys… on the ground?”

Stein never got the chance to answer. There was a shout from in front of them, and Ronnie skidded to a halt, staring down one of the armed soldiers who had somehow gotten in front of them. Dressed in all black and carrying a large gun of some sort, the man was a figure straight out of Ronnie’s most recent nightmares.

“Come quietly,” the man said strongly, “and no one has to get hurt.”

Ronnie could hear the sounds of the rest of the men approaching them from behind, though they hadn’t quite caught up yet. _Screw that_ , he thought to himself strongly, and called on their flames. The professor didn’t bother to try and hold them back, which meant he either agreed with what Ronnie was going to do, or didn’t think he could talk him out of it either.

Moving quickly, before the man could react, Ronnie hurled a fireball straight at the man’s chest that threw him ten feet back, his movement halted only when he impacted with a nearby tree.

Ronnie spun immediately afterward, turning to face the men approaching, and let out a wave of fire in the air at chest height that halted them all in their tracks. All except for one, who rolled under the fire and came up swinging, fist impacting with Ronnie’s cheek.

He hadn’t even seen it coming and stumbled backward, hand coming upward and throwing a fireball blindly in the direction the hit had come from.

Ronnie wasn’t a trained soldier. He didn’t know how to fight in hand-to-hand combat. But he could throw a mean fireball, and he could throw a big fireball. At that range and size, aim didn’t really matter. The blast impacted, and another soldier was thrown backward.

But the man had done his job well, had served as a good distraction, and now there were five other men spread out in a half-circle around Firestorm, weapons aimed and ready, even if two of their number were down for the count.

Ronnie breathed heavily where he stood, trying to ignore his trembling legs and the pain from the hit to his face.

_“They want us alive,”_ Stein reminded him, and his calm tone echoed Ronnie’s mood.

There was no need for a discussion – Ronnie knew they were both thinking the same thing. There was no chance in hell they would let any of these men take them in, over their dead body if need be. Ronnie wasn’t exactly ready to die – he thought of Central City, of his job, of his family, of Caitlin, who he wanted to marry one day – but he also knew that if Eiling got his hands on Firestorm, he was probably as good as dead anyway.

“Who’s next?” he boasted, with more confidence than he felt. Stein was right, they wanted him alive, and that gave him the advantage, didn’t it?

A few of the men shifted, adjusted their grips on their guns. One spoke. “Come in quietly,” he said, unknowingly echoing the other, “and no one will get hurt.”

“No one else, you mean,” Ronnie corrected, and, moving quickly once more, let out a steady stream of fire from both palms.

The man directly in front of him got blasted backward, falling to the ground. The man to his right dove to the side, cursing, while the man on the left flattened himself on the ground, crawling out from under the fire. But the other two men, on the outskirts of the half-circle, were too far apart to be affected by Ronnie’s initial blast. He tried to spread his hands outwards, to the sides, but the men were better trained than him, faster.

The one on his far right surged forward, knocking Ronnie’s arms upward and harmlessly directing the fire towards the sky, then followed that up with a punch to his gut.

_“Behind you!”_ Martin warned, even as Ronnie tried to suck in a gasp of air, tried to recover from the hit.

Again, it was only the size of his blast that protected him, as he blindly reached his left arm behind him and let loose the fire once more. But it was a quick burst this time, Ronnie still curled protectively around his gut, and though it downed the man approaching him from behind, it did nothing to stop the man still in front of him. That man kicked at Ronnie’s leg, dropping him to his knees, and followed it with a hit to the head from the butt of his rather large gun.

Ronnie fell to the ground, dazed, blinking past the pain as his hands impacted with the hard dirt.

_“There’re three more men,”_ Martin said, perhaps sensing Ronnie’s confusion, and his voice cut through the fog, grounded Ronnie once more.

He let out another blast of fire blindly, from the ground, and there was a curse as someone presumably jumped backward to avoid the heat.

Taking advantage of that, Ronnie pushed himself off the ground, and didn’t stop there. He took to the sky, fleeing, focused on nothing but the bright blue sky above him. There was a deafening crack, a bite of pain in his right bicep. Ronnie ignored it, and all the gunshots that followed. Instead of upward, he oriented himself forward, racing over a valley and landing only a minute or two later on an entirely different mountain.

There, in a clearing of pine trees, Ronnie collapsed to his hands and knees, heaving great gulping breaths that still somehow didn’t manage to supply air to his lungs.

_“Ronald!”_ Martin’s tone was worried, beyond concerned. _“Ronald!”_

No, he wasn’t just worried, he was demanding. But Ronnie couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus on anything but the memory of those five guns pointed straight at him. How had he even managed to say anything, to fight back? He was paralyzed with fear now, that and the pain.

There was a tugging inside though, different than the sharp pain in his head and arm, the encompassing pain from his gut, the ache in his legs and arms. Ronnie recognized that tugging, tried to deny it. No, it wasn’t safe, was it? They needed Firestorm. He couldn’t let Martin out, couldn’t put himself and the professor in even more danger.

_“You got us away Ronald,”_ Martin said, and his voice was still the only thing that Ronnie could hear clearly, even if he couldn’t quite focus on what the words meant. _“They’re gone.”_

“The soldiers…” he croaked out.

_“Yes, they’re gone Ronald,”_ Martin said. The tugging grew more insistent.

Right. Ronnie had flown away. He’d gotten them out of there.

He took a deep breath, struggling with it. Then another, and that one was easier. He’d let the panic take him for a moment, and that was alright, because they were safe now, but he couldn’t give into it entirely. He nodded once, which was a terrible idea given his headache, and gave into the tugging.

* * *

It wasn’t the first time during their partnership that Martin had felt Ronald’s pain – there’d been the occasional stubbed toe, a bumped elbow here or there – but it was the first time he was feeling _real_ pain that wasn’t his own. Even separated, Martin could still feel the punch Firestorm had taken to the gut, and his head throbbed in tune with Ronald’s thanks to the blow from the gun, and the hit before that. But, most importantly, it felt like someone had taken a white-hot poker to their right arm, and Ronald only seemed to be cursorily aware of his own gunshot wound.

Martin hurt, but he wasn’t the one bleeding.

Ronald hadn’t even stood to unfuse. He was still on the ground, still on his hands and knees, trying to take deep breaths. Martin could feel his panic and fear, and he too felt uneasy about being separated, but they were safe, for now. If the army still had eyes in the sky then they no doubt knew where Firestorm was, but, as Ronald had thought, if those seven men they’d been up against were all that made up the ground forces, then it would be a while before they managed to get to Firestorm’s current position.

So, first things first: the bleeding gash in Ronald’s arm.

“Ronald,” Martin said carefully, approaching the other man.

Ronald seemed to blink himself awake, glancing up as Martin approached, but his eyes were still unfocused. He shifted back, taking the weight off his arms and resting on his legs, folded under him.

“They…” he started to say, but trailed off uncertainly.

“You’ve been shot Ronald,” Martin said plainly.

Ronald only blinked again, then, glancing down at his arm, finally seemed to realize how much pain he was in. He winced, but it seemed to wake him up. He glanced upward at the direction they’d come.

“We’re exposed here,” he said, and tried to struggle to his feet.

“No,” Martin moved quickly, placed a hand on Ronald’s uninjured shoulder and pushed him down again. “We can take a few minutes.”

Ronald was weak enough that he sat without question.

“We don’t have anything resembling bandages,” Martin continued, “but the extra t-shirt…”

Ronald nodded.

Still favoring his own right arm, Martin moved behind Ronald to access the backpack, and carefully unzipped it without jostling the younger man. He didn’t feel like attempting to take it off, given Ronald’s current state. He grabbed the t-shirt – worn and smelly, but still the cleanest thing they owned – and then the half-full water bottle on a whim.

He crouched down next to Ronald’s injured arm.

“I… I have taken some preliminary first aid classes,” he said hesitantly, “but it has been a while.”

Ronald met his gaze, pointedly avoiding looking at his injury. “When?” he asked.

Martin could feel his emotions: the receding fear and panic, and something he didn’t have a name for, a sort of mixture of focus and determination that told him Ronald was looking for a distraction.

“I did used to teach a couple lab classes,” he said, keeping his tone casual. “And I do still work in a lab, from time to time. My work isn’t all theoretical, you know.” He moved as he spoke, tearing the shirt in his hands with no small amount of effort, given that the action required both arms and sent a twinge of pain through his own phantom injury. “I never had much cause to use anything I learned,” he continued. “But there is the occasional lab accident that needs tending to, and I wanted to be prepared.”

“You taught physics,” Ronald said through gritted teeth, wincing as Martin poured their clean water over the wound. “I thought chemistry labs were the dangerous ones.”

Martin’s lips twitched upward in the briefest of smiles, but he was too focused on what he was doing to appreciate the attempt at humor. “Yes, well,” he said, placing the bottle on the ground beside him, “you’d be surprised.” He hesitated, holding up a strip of cloth. “This will hurt, but it doesn’t look too deep.”

Ronald glanced away, teeth still gritted, clenching his left fist in anticipation as he carefully didn’t move his right. “Just get it over with.”

Right. Martin wrapped the cloth around the wound, and tied it tight, trying to ignore the pain he could feel from Ronald increasing in his own arm. Then, just to be careful, he took the remainder of the t-shirt, and tied that around the first bandage as well.

“I must remind you that I am not that kind of doctor,” Martin said, once he’d finished. “I have no idea of how bad it is.”

Ronald nodded, shifting again, leaning backward and releasing the tension that had filled him with a long breath.

In the pause, with the immediate danger out of the way and the injuries taken care of as best he could, Martin’s body apparently decided it was his turn to panic. He glanced down at his hands. They weren’t _covered_ , exactly, but they still had Ronald’s blood on them. He felt nauseous. He… Ronald had just been shot. They’d fought off an armed squadron of soldiers, been so close to being captured, taken back to Eiling…

And now he had Ronald’s blood on his hands. He hadn’t been lying, when he’d said he’d never had much cause to use the few first aid skills he’d learned over the years. If the wound had been more serious, if the bullet had done more than graze Ronald…

“Alright,” Ronald said from next to him, “I guess it’s my turn to pull you out of _your_ panic.”

Martin glanced up to see that Ronald had stretched a hand toward him. “What?”

“We can’t stay here,” Ronald reminded him.

“But… are you…?”

“Firestorm’ll manage,” Ronald said, and his confidence didn’t feel faked.

Still Martin hesitated. “If you wish to rest a few minutes longer…”

Ronald shook his head. “C’mon,” he said.

Martin stood without Ronald’s aid, then reached for the hand stretched out to him. He started to pull Ronald to his feet, but by the time the younger man was standing, Martin was gone, a part of Firestorm once more.

Ronald looked down at the blood that had been transferred to his own hand with their touch, froze ever so slightly, then leaned over to use the last of the water in the bottle to wash it off.

“We came from…?” he started to ask.

_“Our left,”_ Martin told him. He did feel safer, as part of Firestorm, did feel more confident in their ability to face whatever came their way, but he was also more connected to Ronald. He could feel the man’s raging headache that made the sun seem even more blinding, the pain in his arm that made him want to stop and sleep, the exhaustion from sprinting through the forest and flinging fireballs around.

It was only mid-day, and so much had already happened, but they’d just left their safe space behind, and now they needed to find another one.

As Ronald set off to their right, moving away from the direction they’d come from, Martin came to the decision not to have this trek be a silent one. Usually, he left Ronald to his own thoughts, but this time he figured the man could use a distraction, something to keep him awake.

_“I… apologize,”_ he said after a moment, _“for judging you so harshly for wanting to remain in Albuquerque.”_

Ronald shook his head minutely, mindful of his headache. “No. You were right it turned out. Eiling was right behind us.”

_“Actually, staying might have been safer,”_ Martin admitted. _“You don’t use a fighter jet if you already know where someone is.”_

“You mean…?”

_“I’m saying that fighter jets cost money, and though it may occasionally seem to be otherwise, Eiling’s funds are not limitless. Leaving later, staying longer… might have kept us safe.”_

Ronald seemed to recognize the olive branch for what it was. He smiled slightly. “Yeah, well, leaving earlier might have helped too,” he said.

_“Perhaps. We’ll never know how long Eiling had planes flying over, or how many cities he had been keeping watch on.”_

“Maybe we should hold off on the flying then,” Ronald suggested, “just in case he’s got the jet rented for a little longer.”

Martin let out a huff of laughter at the other man’s word choice, but felt his amusement dissipate as he realized what it meant. _“Ronald…”_

“I’m fine,” the younger man cut in.

_“No, you’re not,”_ Martin said plainly. _“We need to find somewhere to rest, you need to get fluids in you, something to eat. I may not be a doctor but I know that blood loss is serious.”_

“Maybe,” Ronald allowed, “but I’m pretty sure that getting captured by a nutcase who wants to use us as a weapon is pretty serious too.”

They’d been attacked, shot, surrounded by trained soldiers and almost taken prisoner – Martin wasn’t sure how he could laugh about it, but he couldn’t hold back the snort of amusement that followed Ronald’s words.

Ronald walked on, a bit slower, a bit more unsteady than before. Martin thought about suggesting using their second water bottle, but what he’d mentioned earlier still applied – they had no idea of how long they would be in the mountains, especially now that flying was out of the question.

But as Ronald walked, as he stumbled over a rock in the dirt, as he blinked at the bright sun overhead, as he swallowed, trying to keep his mouth moistened in the desert heat after all their exertion, Martin knew he had to keep talking.

Ronald was the one supporting them, fighting through his pain and exhaustion, trying to get them to safety. Martin couldn’t help with that. What he could do was keep watch through Ronald’s eyes, keep Ronald alert, distract him from the exhaustion that tugged at their brains.

_“Tell me about Dr. Snow,”_ he suggested after a few minutes of silence. _“How did you two meet?”_

Ronald mustered up a weak smile, a small trickle of happiness twisting through his exhausted state of mind, and began to talk.

* * *

Nightfall found Ronald practically collapsing to the ground, beyond exhausted.

Martin tugged himself free, the other man barely aware enough to go along with it. They’d had no more mishaps, and had only stopped briefly once or twice the rest of the day. The absence of the sun brought with it colder temperatures, but Firestorm couldn’t stay. It was too risky for both of them to fall asleep, but also too risky for Ronald to push through his exhaustion.

“No,” Ronald managed to say, eyes half closed, as Martin reformed.

“We’re as safe as we can be, for the moment,” Martin said firmly. He stepped forward, carefully helping Ronald remove the backpack, avoiding the man’s injury and the pain that echoed down his own arm at the movements. “Here.” He extracted their thin blanket, and handed it over.

Ronald grabbed it, then shook his head, as if trying to wake up. “You’re just as exhausted as I am,” he managed to mumble out.

“Mentally, perhaps,” Martin allowed, but though his body was drained by the day’s efforts (some of the fire came from him, surely, given that it was a mutual effort, and it was that that had tired him out, no doubt), he wasn’t as bad off as the younger man before him. “I’ll make do.”

Ronald coughed, trying to speak again, but his mouth was too dry to let the words form. Worried, noticing his pale face and the sweat on his forehead, Martin pulled out the second of their three water bottles as well, and handed it over.

This time, Ronald didn’t argue. He took a small sip.

“It doesn’t have to be the whole night,” Martin capitulated. “But you _must rest_ if we are to ever get out of here.”

Closing his eyes, Ronald blindly wadded up the blanket to serve as some kind of pillow, leaning away from the tree he’d collapsed against. He was too exhausted to fight back, and fell into an uneasy sleep within the minute.

Martin watched him warily for a moment, concerned. He knew nothing about injuries beyond the fact that he couldn’t let Ronald’s get infected, but he also knew there was nothing he could do about that at the moment.

It was chilly, as the sun disappeared completely, but Martin didn’t grab their winter coat from the backpack. He wanted to stay awake, wanted to remain alert. He forced himself to stand, pacing a small circle around his slumbering companion.

Perhaps his earlier thoughts had been wrong. It was true that he and Ronald had been thrown together, forced to become a part of each other’s lives through no choices of their own, but everything after that could have been chalked up to free will. Ronald had chosen to come for Martin. Maybe he’d been only focused on saving himself, maybe he’d only been doing the right thing, regardless of whether it had been Martin or someone else in the chair, but he’d come regardless, and that meant something.

So maybe their relationship had started out uncertainly, two strangers on the same road, but that didn’t mean it had stayed that way. There _was_ a tentative friendship between him and Ronald, however tenuous and unsteady. They cared about what happened to each other for more reasons than their own safety.

Maybe that was just them being good people, doing the right thing, being kind to others – but how else would you define a friendship?

Mutual affection, enjoying each other’s company, kindness towards each other, sympathy and empathy and compassion – the ability to be oneself, without fear of judgement… Did these things not apply to them? Yes, they had been forced together, and yes, they’d chosen to stay together only for their own safety, but…

Martin cared about what happened to Ronald. He worried about him. He enjoyed those quiet moments when they weren’t trying to find something to eat or worrying about where to sleep, when they just talked. Listening to Ronald talk about his fiancée that afternoon – it hadn’t just been a distraction. Or, it had been, but Martin had been genuinely interested in the stories Ronald told him. It hadn’t just been meaningless conversation that he’d tuned out.

He’d never envisioned himself engaging in such a friendship with someone like Ronald – so much younger than him, for one – but they wouldn’t have survived as long as they had together if they didn’t get along to some degree.

They had a way to go, perhaps, before they had anything resembling the friendship they had with their lovers, or that Ronnie had with Cisco and Martin with his own close friends, but Martin had been wrong earlier, when he’d thought that Firestorm was the only connection between them. It had been true, once, but that was no longer the case.

So Martin paced around their small section of the forest, keeping an eye out for his friend, perhaps. His partner, at the very least. They were in this together, and they’d get out of it together. After their fight that afternoon, Martin was surer of that then he’d ever been, even as waking nightmares of Eiling and his soldiers haunted his every step.

* * *

Ronnie was so exhausted he dropped into sleep almost immediately, but not so exhausted that the nightmares stayed away. He jolted awake about five hours later, flinching, breathing hard, and could remember nothing more than a rifle in his face as the forest burned down around him.

Stein hurried toward him, and Ronnie used the other man’s concern to ground himself in reality. He was awake, this was real, and Eiling’s men had been left far behind them.

It was still dark out, and Ronnie blinked through the forest at the other man. He’d known it was Stein not because he could see him, but because he could feel him.

“How long was I out?” he croaked out, using his left arm to raise himself slightly off the ground.

“I’m afraid I’m not sure,” Martin admitted, placing a hand under Ronnie’s elbow and helping him sit upright. It would have been weird and awkward with anyone else, the close proximity and casual contact, but Martin had literally spent most of his time the past month and a half inside Ronnie. There was nothing he hadn’t already seen. “How do you feel?”

Weak, if Ronnie was being honest. He felt lightheaded and hungry. His legs ached with all the running he’d done, and his face throbbed – talking had hurt. His arm was another story entirely. Every twitch of his right shoulder sent pain signals back up to his brain.

“Probably as bad as I look,” he managed to say, which didn’t soothe any of Martin’s concern for him.

But Ronnie pushed through it, let the other man help him to his feet, swaying only slightly. “I’m good though,” he insisted.

Martin just handed him a water bottle. “Drink,” he said firmly.

Ronnie took it almost desperately, and grabbed a few sips as Martin bent over once more, shoving the blanket Ronnie had used as a pillow back into the backpack. Except, then the older man slipped the backpack over his own shoulders as he straightened, and Ronnie’s mind temporarily drew a blank.

“What are you doing?”

“We must keep moving,” Stein reminded him.

“No, I know that, just… Firestorm.”

Martin shook his head. “We’ll stay close,” he promised, “but you are in no state to carry all of our burdens.”

Ronnie opened his mouth to protest, but a look from Firestorm’s other half had him closing it again.

“Just for a short while,” Martin continued, “while you get your feet back under you.”

“And Eiling’s men?” Ronnie asked after a moment.

“There’s been no sign of them.”

Ronnie took a deep breath, evaluated his own condition again. “Alright,” he agreed reluctantly, cheek twinging with pain as he spoke. “Just for a short while.” He took a few steps forward to Martin’s side, and the two of them started their slow progress through the forest once more. “This time, you can tell me about your wife.”

They were both still exhausted and hungry and in pain, and their steps were unsure and cautious in the dark, but Martin obliged, and they journeyed onward with his voice carrying them forward.

* * *

By the time the light of day rose over the treetops, soft and gentle in its warmth, both Martin and Ronald had long since fallen silent. They had reached a state beyond exhaustion, and if they had been attacked at that moment even merging might have presented a struggle.

There was no thought in their minds except moving forward; the landscape passed by unnoticed. Only the fear of what they’d narrowly avoided kept them moving, even as their hunger and pain urged them to stop, to lay down and rest.

Martin, only slightly more aware than his partner, had stopped Ronald’s small stumbles from turning into painful falls twice now already. He watched tree after tree pass them by, barely registering the sights. He’d never known he could get so exhausted – they hadn’t just pulled an all-nighter, they’d pulled an all-nighter after a day of running and fighting, a day of calling on Firestorm’s energy to flee and defend themselves. They’d pulled an all-nighter with little water, and even less food, snacking on the two old granola bars they’d had stashed in the backpack for emergencies.

Ronald, at least, had gotten a few hours of sleep, but his injuries meant that he wasn’t any better off than Martin. Worse off, actually, Martin worried, judging from the sweat on his face despite how cool the night had gotten.

The thought that they needed to stop registered distantly in the back of Martin’s mind, but it wasn’t until a few minutes later that he actually processed it. There was a house in the distance, and Martin stopped and stared for a few seconds as his brain tried to understand what that meant (what possibilities the structure offered, as well as its dangers).

He reached out a hand to stop Ronald in his tracks, still staring.

Martin couldn’t believe that he was even entertaining the idea that crossed his mind just then, of being nothing more than a common thief. Breaking and entering? Not something he ever would have envisioned himself doing, not before Firestorm. But while they could sleep in the woods all they wanted, Ronald needed medicine, and clean bandages if they could find them.

“This way,” he said, changing course.

“What?” Ronald asked blearily, confused, trailing behind him. Martin could feel his exhaustion, his struggle to think clearly. “You want to ask for help?”

“I was rather hoping no one would be home,” Martin answered honestly, if wearily.

Through the exhaustion radiating off the other man, Martin caught a faint hint of surprise.

“You mean…?”

Martin angled their approach to better see the driveway as they neared the house.

“Breaking and entering, yes.” No need to mince words.

Ronald’s emotions recoiled slightly at the suggestion. Martin quickly spoke again before he could protest.

“You need medicine, and I doubt very much that there are any stores around here,” he said. There weren’t even any other houses in sight. Though there might have been some further down the road, Martin was willing to bet this neighborhood was _very_ spread out, isolated homes deep in the woods, with few people that could be counted as neighbors.

Grudging agreement, but still slight disdain. Martin ignored his younger partner’s slight revulsion to the idea. He himself wasn’t a huge fan of the thought, but he’d do what was necessary. And they were in luck anyway – there was no car under the shelter next to the house or in the driveway, and no garage that could have hidden it. No one was home.

“C’mon,” he said, urging Ronald onward.

Upon reaching the front door, Martin couldn’t believe their luck – after the terrible day they’d had yesterday, the first house they came across was both empty _and_ unlocked. No breaking required, just entering. He pushed open the door, then turned to help Ronald up the few steps.

“We won’t stay long,” he promised. “Just long enough to tend to your injury and refill our water bottles, perhaps grab some food.”

Ronald didn’t speak, but that at least meant that he wasn’t protesting either. Inside the house, Martin quickly closed the door behind them, looking around. For a moment, the novelty of being in a house again, even an unfamiliar one, after a month and a half on the streets, had him frozen in his tracks, but it didn’t take him long to adjust.

Medical supplies would likely be in a bathroom. Martin moved to take a step forward to look, but Ronald’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“We should at least take our shoes off,” the younger man said.

Martin looked down at his own feet, sore and aching, and his worn-down shoes. They weren’t designed for hiking, but he’d made do. “I’m not sure our socks are any cleaner,” he half-muttered, but he bent over and slipped off his shoes, leaving them on the rug.

Ronald let out an exhausted half-snort at the words, then steadied himself on the door frame and removed his shoes without bending over, rubbing the heels against his legs as he pulled them off without untying his laces.

“Wait here,” Martin said, shrugging off the backpack as well before he made his way down the hall. Uncomfortably aware that he was in a stranger’s home without their knowledge, he tread carefully and tried not to snoop. They wouldn’t go upstairs, he decided, unless it was absolutely necessary. They’d stick to one bathroom, and perhaps the kitchen, if they could.

There was a full bathroom at the end of the hall, thankfully, and Martin quickly checked the cabinet behind the mirror. Nothing but a few medicines (Advil, cough syrup, Neosporin…) and some toiletries. But in the cabinet in the hall, just outside the bathroom, there was a first aid kit, tucked neatly on a shelf.

Martin pulled it out, set it on the counter in the bathroom, and then went back for Ronald.

“There’s a tub in the bathroom,” he said, picking up the backpack and following carefully behind his partner. “If you don’t mind sitting in there, that should prevent us from getting blood over this person’s home.”

Ronald smiled weakly in response, and Martin knew from his emotional state that he had already agreed.

Watching Ronald fold himself into the tub, rather than making Martin feel better – now that they were somewhere relatively safe and secure, with the supplies they needed – actually made him more concerned. In the harsh artificial lighting, the bruise that had blossomed on Ronald’s cheek clashed violently with his too-pale skin, and now Martin could see the dried blood caking the gray t-shirt he’d tied around the gunshot wound.

“That bad, huh?”

Martin shook himself, remembered their empathic connection, and mustered up a smile. “Of course not,” he bluffed, setting the backpack down and pulling out their last full water bottle, which he set on the edge of the tub. He turned, taking the Advil out of the cabinet and moving the first aid kit to the closed toilet seat.

Shoving aside the shower curtain, Martin took a seat on the edge of the tub, nearer to Ronald’s injured arm than his uninjured one.

“Here,” he said. He handed the other man two Advil first, then moved for the disinfectant next.

“Take some for yourself,” Ronald suggested weakly.

Martin glanced over at him, nudging the water bottle closer. “My pain will ease as your does,” he reminded his partner – but though he knew it was true when it came to the echoes of Ronald’s headache and gunshot wound, he wasn’t sure how much it would help his own aches and pains that came from hiking through the mountains for hours in business casual footwear. He supposed he’d find out soon enough.

He set aside the bottle of pain killers either way, contemplating stealing the whole bottle, and opened the first aid kit.

* * *

Disinfecting a gunshot wound on the arm of a man you shared superpowers with while in a stranger’s house hiding from the United States Army was very distracting – Martin had no other excuse for how he didn’t hear the car pull up. He certainly heard the door open though, and froze, meeting Ronald’s gaze with alarm.

They’d left their shoes behind on the front rug, and now it felt like an entirely foolish thing to do. But, given the time, Martin hadn’t pictured anyone returning home anytime soon. Rather, he’d assumed the occupant had just left. And he knew that, from the front door, there was no missing the light on in the bathroom.

He thought about fusing. Couldn’t get the image of a soldier, armed to the teeth, out of his head.

“I’m armed, and I’m calling the police!” a voice declared strongly, projecting through the home.

Martin’s mind blanked. Anything but that. He found himself on his feet without having made the conscious decision to stand, and hurried into the hall without further thought.

Ronald hissed something behind him, words of caution no doubt, or an attempt to stop him, but though Martin could feel the other man’s panic mingling with his own, he didn’t hear what he said.

Worries, fears, doubts and anxieties, possible dangers – irrational thoughts that the homeowner was waiting with a machine gun, or that Eiling was just outside – none of these things mattered. All that mattered was ensuring that the authorities were not contacted.

He could see the homeowner as he hurried down the hall, still standing by her front door. He took in her stance, the heavy looking object in her right hand, the phone in her left. She was younger to middle aged, tall and solid, hair pulled back in an efficient pony-tail, but though Martin took all this in, his eyes were only on the phone in her hand.

“Wait!” he called out as he approached, raising his hands. His mind was frantic with possibilities as to what could happen if the phone call actually connected, with no thoughts whatsoever to the more immediate danger. “We… we’ll leave,” he got out, words frantic and rushed. “There’s no need to call the police!”

The woman froze, grip tightening on the object in her right hand as she looked Martin up and down.

“We just… needed some bandages,” Martin floundered, going for honesty. “And your door was unlocked. If you just… let us leave, there’s no need to call the authorities.”

Shoulders relaxing slightly, even as her grip remained strong on her ‘weapon’, the woman lowered the hand holder her phone.

“Bandages?” she asked, half harsh, half confused.

“My friend was injured,” Martin said hurriedly, eyes still on the phone. His heart was pounding frantically in his chest, but it was finally starting to slow. Movement behind him stopped whatever he was going to say next.

Both Martin’s and the woman’s eyes flickered over to the figure standing in the entrance of the hallway: wound still not bandaged, Ronald had grabbed the remnants of the t-shirt they’d already removed and was holding it to his injury, slumped over slightly, barely standing, expression drained but concerned.

Martin’s mind blanked again – he hadn’t thought the other man would follow him, would bother to get up when he was so exhausted and in pain.

“Ronald!” he cried out in alarm, turning away from the woman to face his partner. “What are you…?” He moved forward, grabbing Ronald’s uninjured arm by the elbow, helping him stay upright.

“Is he alright?” the woman asked, concern in her voice.

Firestorms’ eyes both flickered to her – separate though they might have been, at that moment they moved in concert.

“I’m fine,” Ronald lied, rather poorly thanks to the exhaustion in his tone.

“As I said,” Martin said, a bit more strongly than before, “we were just leaving.”

Ronald had taken some pain medication, and the wound had been disinfected. That… that would have to be enough. For now, at least.

“No you’re not,” the woman said back to them, her own voice strong and confrontational. “He needs a hospital.” The objects in her hands seemed to have been forgotten.

Martin blinked at her. “What?”

She hesitated, then: “Look, you’re just here for some first aid, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then… you can stay.”

Maybe they didn’t look like much of a threat, tired and worn down as they were, one of them injured, the other an old man. Or maybe the woman was simply the kind to help those in need, and believed their story. Likely it was some combination of the two.

Although Martin’s mind screamed warnings at him, about how dangerous it was that someone else knew where they were, how she could have already called the police, how they knew nothing about her, or what she was capable of, he didn’t turn her down. Ronald still needed bandages, and they hadn’t refilled their water bottles yet, and they both needed rest.

He froze, and locked eyes with his partner. After a brief moment, Ronald gave the smallest of nods.

* * *

The woman’s name was Carolyn, she lived alone in the house in a small town in the mountains of northern New Mexico, and, Ronnie figured, she was either crazy, very kind, or very trusting.

Sure, she kept a careful watch on them as Martin finished bandaging Ronnie’s wound, always keeping herself a few steps back, but then she’d promptly looked them up and down, declared loudly that they both stunk, and offered them the usage of the shower.

Ronnie and Martin had both hesitated. The chance for a real shower – unlimited hot water in a private bathroom, actual soap – was _so_ incredibly tempting. But the last time Ronnie had hopped in a shower, at a homeless shelter in Dallas, it had been as Firestorm. And the offer, while generous, would separate them. (They could not merge now, not in front of this kind woman who barely trusted them.)

Concern, trepidation, caution, longing – the emotions had flown rapidly across their bond, and in the end the offer had been too good to pass up.

So now Martin was in the shower while Ronnie sat on the hardwood floor of the woman’s living room, unwilling to dirty her couch.

He was still exhausted and fighting off the urge to sleep, but the Advil had kicked in, and the pain was at least duller now.

Carolyn, seated on the couch several feet away, eyed him critically. “You weren’t just lost in the woods, or homeless,” she said in realization, clearly thinking. “You’re running.”

Ronnie couldn’t think of a lie to rebut that, and anyway, he didn’t see much point in doing so. He smiled weakly, tiredly, a defeated expression. “If you guessed that,” he said, “why did you let us stay?”

“You looked like you needed help.”

There wasn’t really anything to say to that either. “We did.”

The woman’s look remained scrutinizing, but Ronnie was too tired to try and puzzle out what she meant. He had to stay awake, in case she was stalling for time, or Eiling was tracking them down without her help. Better to have Martin vulnerable, and capable of being absorbed into Firestorm, if the need arose, then to have Ronnie vulnerable and their only means of escape eliminated.

“Never really heard of a guy going on the run with his father before,” she said plainly.

Ronnie’s mind momentarily blanked. He blinked. “What?”

Carolyn raised her eyebrows at him.

“Martin… the professor…” Ronnie shook his head. “He’s not my father.”

“That doesn’t actually make things better,” she said. “You just decided to go on the run with some random old dude?”

“It’s complicated,” Ronnie said defensively.

“Seems like it would be.”

It was clear she was looking for answers and maybe, given all that she was doing for them, she was owed some. But Ronnie was so tired. He was having trouble focusing.

“Here.”

He looked up to see her handing one of the couch pillows to him. He blinked again, shook his head. “No, I can’t…”

“I think _I’m_ supposed to be the one who doesn’t trust you,” Carolyn pointed out.

“On the run, remember?” Ronnie mumbled, as she tossed the pillow down onto the floor next to him. It was the softest thing he’d seen in ages, and he prodded it in a distracted sort of way, longing for sleep.

“ _I’d_ feel safer, if you were unconscious.”

Ronnie’s lips quirked upward almost unconsciously at the woman’s tone. “Was that a joke?” he asked, blinking up at her.

She grinned back at him, a bit wary, but genuinely amused.

Ronnie chanced another glance back toward the bathroom. Martin _was_ right there. And he _did_ need to sleep. And he was so tired. Exhausted beyond measure, despite the few hours he’d gotten in earlier.

Without even realizing it, his eyes slid shut, and he jerked himself awake suddenly before he could fall asleep sitting up.

With one more look towards the woman who had chosen to help her home’s intruders, Ronnie leaned over, laying on the floor and letting sleep swiftly claim him.

* * *

A bitter sharp pain in his arm woke Ronnie sometime later, and for a moment, in his half-asleep state, it was all his mind could focus on. His bicep seemed to throb in tune with his heartbeat. Moving his arm felt as though it was all too great a task to undertake.

But as Ronnie woke, he remembered not just why he was in pain, but also where he was. His slow rise from slumber was halted, replaced by a sudden awakening, and awareness. He felt the hard floor beneath him, the pillow under his head, the warmth and sounds of another sleeping body near his, and jolted upright, ready for a fight.

His eyes moved rapidly over his surroundings as he processed what he was seeing, remembered what it meant. He was still in the woman’s – Carolyn’s – house. Still safe. Martin lay on the floor not far from him, head resting on his own pillow, still deep in slumber. Their backpack rested against the couch, near their feet.

And Carolyn herself was watching him as he woke, standing behind the island that separated her kitchen from her living room.

It was also, Ronnie was startled to realize, pitch black out. He’d slept a long time.

“Finally up?” she asked.

Ronnie blinked at her. “Yeah.” His voice croaked with disuse, but he swallowed, wet his lips. “Sorry about… what time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

A full day had passed. A full day she’d had to deal with strangers in her house, sleeping or not, not knowing if they were a threat.

“Sorry,” he said again. He glanced over at the professor once more, surprised the other man had slept without insisting upon shifts.

Carolyn seemed to pick up on what he was thinking.

“Took me a while to convince him to sleep,” she admitted shortly. “He seems a bit crotchety to me.”

Ronnie thought of Martin’s subtle disdain for the homeless – not that he saw them as less than others, he helped Ronnie help those they came across whenever they could and clearly valued all human life, but he did see them as less trustworthy, less intelligent, even if he wasn’t aware of that.

“He can be a bit arrogant,” he agreed softly. “But then, I might be a bit too trusting, sometimes.” He thought of Stein’s words from a few weeks ago, that only four people had known about Firestorm. Ronnie still didn’t believe that any of his friends had sold them out, but Eiling had still found out about Firestorm, and the consequences were all too real, as the pain in his arm reminded him.

Carolyn looked at him oddly. “You’re strangely fond of your arrogant not-father.”

“It’s… complicated.”

Carolyn spoke the word at the same time he did, offering up a small smile of amusement. “Yeah,” she said.

“Thank you,” Ronnie said. “For letting us stay.” He glanced over at Martin again, loathe to wake him, but also knowing they couldn’t impose on this woman any longer.

“Hold up,” she said, before he could speak again, before he could leave. “I promised you a shower. And you should eat something before you leave.” She nodded towards the island between them, and for the first time Ronnie noticed the two full plates that sat there.

He licked his lips again, at the thought or real, warm food, of a hot shower. Tearing his gaze away from the dinner she’d made for them, he locked eyes with her again.

“You… didn’t have to,” he said, stunned by the woman’s kindness.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said bluntly, “I’ve got a pocket knife in my pocket and there’s no way you’re staying the night, but I wasn’t just going to let you die in the woods.”

Ronnie quirked a small smile. “Thanks,” he repeated simply. He heaved himself to his feet, wincing as the movement jostled his arm, and moved toward the backpack. Except there, on top of their belongings, was the bottle of Advil they’d stolen from earlier.

He glanced back at Carolyn.

“Yeah, I went through your stuff,” she said unapologetically.

Ronnie… Ronnie could understand that. It wasn’t like they’d had anything to hide anyway, just some old laundry. He pulled out the extra pair of pants and undergarments, but then stopped again, sending the woman another glance.

She shrugged. “Might have done some laundry too.”

Except that wasn’t just it either: there was food in the backpack, bags of trail mix – dried fruit and nuts – granola bars and pretzels and nutrition bars. Their water bottles had been refilled, and there were fresh bandages and medical tape in there as well.

Ronnie felt a lump in his throat. He glanced up a third time. “You know nothing about us,” he said plainly, a question clear in his tone.

“I know you looked lost, and you were injured. I know the two of you care about each other, whatever your relationship is. And I know the authorities aren’t always the good guys, regardless of the fact that I’m friends with the local sheriff. I know enough.”

The words wouldn’t come. Ronnie just shook his head, taken aback. After all the suffering he’d seen the past month and a half – his own, the professor’s, and others’ – it was nice to be reminded that there was still good in the world.

“Thank you,” he said once more, pouring every ounce of sincerity into his words that he could muster, knowing that they would never be able to repay this woman for what she was doing, and that she would never know exactly how much her kindness meant to them.

* * *

An hour later, Ronnie and Martin stood side by side in the middle of a small city they didn’t know the name of. After a terrifying day spent running through the mountains, after fighting trained, armed soldiers and fleeing for their lives, they’d showered and slept and eaten.

Ronnie’s face was purple and yellow, his arm sore, his gut aching, but his wound had been bandaged, and the Advil he’d taken was helping him with the pain. He was actually full, for once.

Still – there was no telling how far behind them Eiling’s men were.

He glanced over at the professor, and held out his hand.

Meeting his gaze, Martin surrendered himself over to Firestorm.

They were back on the run again, and this time the dangers were more vivid and real, would haunt their nightmares in the years to come. But the danger had also united them in a way going on the run hadn’t, solidified a tentative friendship forming between the two of them. It was time they got to work, and found out what Firestorm was really capable of.


	3. A Definite Bond

Wary of flying, Firestorm hitchhiked out of New Mexico, heading north on US Highway 64 until they hit Interstate 25, which they followed even further north into Colorado. From there, a truck driver took them all the way up to Denver, and they hid around the city for a few days, trying to get their bearings.

Though the nightmarish events from the mountains of New Mexico were behind them, with no trace that Eiling knew where they had gone, they were not so easily forgotten. Neither one of them seemed to be able to sleep without waking suddenly from a jolt to the heart and the fear of a gun in their face.

Ronnie had found himself puking after one such nightmare, and the next day, when Martin had slept as Ronnie kept watch, the older man had jolted upright, grabbed at Ronnie, and started to fuse without further thought. Ronnie, aware of the fear racing through the other man, had let him use Firestorm as a crutch.

They weren’t running scared – during their waking hours they were more focused than they’d ever been, working on discovering Firestorm’s abilities in the small ways they could in such a crowded city, discussing their plans for the future – but the experience had changed them. They were more alert, warier. They moved quicker, and lingered less.

Ronnie’s resentment of being on the run, his anger toward Eiling for forcing them into such a life, hadn’t evaporated, but it no longer manifested in the form of him dragging his feet. He’d stayed in Albuquerque as long as they had because he’d been longing for some form of normalcy, some sort of home, a way to stop running. He knew he wouldn’t let himself relax in such a way again. Not for a long time.

Now, they avoided other people as best they could. There was no telling how close Eiling was behind them, and no point in endangering others. Though Carolyn had given them some money as well (“I’m living on my own in a nice house in the middle of nowhere – you think I’m strapped for cash?”), they saved it, sticking with soup kitchens and dumpsters for the time being.

Each night they slept somewhere different, either as Firestorm or in shifts. Maybe they’d thrown Eiling off their trail, maybe they hadn’t.

Their longing for home increased with their nightmares, and it didn’t help that Central City was almost perfectly due east of Denver, almost a straight shot down I-70.

“Maybe we could just… write a letter,” Ronnie suggested one day. Firestorm was sitting under an overpass as the rain poured down around them, a late March storm that heralded the coming of spring.

_“We could,”_ Martin conceded wistfully, his longing clear, _“but what we really wish is to talk to them, and that will not help us in that regard.”_

Ronnie sighed. He leaded back against the hard concrete behind him, knowing he couldn’t stick around too long in their current location before someone came to tell him off for loitering.

“Prepaid phone?” he suggested.

He could feel Martin’s exhaustion and weariness just as well as he could his own.

_“And if Eiling is tapping their phones?”_

It wasn’t like they hadn’t gone through all this before. Now, they were saying it just to say it, not because they actually believed it could be done. He looked out at the pouring rain, just for once the weather going along with their mood, and climbed to his feet, wincing at the lingering pain in his arm.

Though Ronnie couldn’t have cared less about getting wet, their few belongings were going to get soaked if he stayed out in the rain too long, so he wandered in the direction of the poorer part of town, searching for an abandoned building to sneak into.

And then there was a crackle of light across the sky, and thunder rumbled loudly as it faded. Ronnie flinched, and Martin flinched inside him, and they both called on their fire without thinking, without worrying, only reacting.

Firestorm stood there in the pouring rain, hot enough that the water evaporated before ever touching them – hotter than they usually were – ready for a fight that wasn’t coming. Across the street someone let out a shout. A car stopped in alarm, the one behind it crashing into its bumper. It wasn’t exactly a busy street, but there were plenty of witnesses.

With the dawning realization of where they were and what they’d done, Firestorm extinguished their flames, and Ronnie ran.

* * *

Running, running, running. It seemed that all they did these days was run. They fled city after city, traveled down road after road. They avoided eye contact, hid from cops, kept away from anywhere with too many cameras.

Never still, rarely resting. They slept somewhere different each night, ate somewhere different each meal.

Two months away from home. Two months where they were the only constants in each other’s lives. Two months of _running_.

Two months of ducking and dodging, evading and escaping, laying low, steering clear of and sneaking away.

Two months of exhaustion and hunger, of sleeplessness and thirst, of weariness and fatigue, of fear and anxiety, dismay and doubt, unease and dread.

Two months of pain. Two months of suffering.

_Two months of running_.

They were tired of running.

* * *

Ronald handed over the money quickly, tugged the (stolen) baseball cap down tighter on Firestorm’s head, and then quickly left the store with their purchases.

“Really think this is gonna work?” he mumbled under his breath as they fled, quick steps purposeful and sure of their direction.

_“Do you have any reason why it might not?”_ Martin asked. _“Eiling may be tapping their phones, but if all goes well he won’t even know these devices exist.”_

Uncertainty, but mellowed, overridden by a hopeful sort of anticipation. Ronald glanced down at the bag in their hands. “God, I hope you’re right,” he said fervently.

They were hitchhiking their way to Pittsburgh, traveling to see an old colleague and friend of Martin’s. John Byerly was close enough to him, a good enough friend, that Martin trusted him to keep their arrival in town a secret, but it’d been some time since they’d last spoken. Regardless, the man had access to just the sort of equipment they needed if they wanted to figure out Firestorm’s secrets. They could only hope that Eiling wasn’t aware of their connection.

But they’d stopped in St. Louis, however far from their destination they might have been. Driving across Kansas, passing just south of Central City on I-70 as they’d crossed the border into Missouri, seeing the signs for their hometown – it had caused a swell of emotions in the both of them, sitting in the passenger’s seat of a Penske truck as Firestorm at the time.

They hadn’t talked with those they loved since they’d fled, that early morning back in early February. It was over a week into April now, and they were missing home.

Calling might have altered Eiling to their position, or maybe he would even have been able to listen in. Letters were one way to communicate, but what they really wanted was to have a conversation. So far, they hadn’t managed to find a way around that.

Maybe now they had.

* * *

Life had changed for Clarissa Stein, in ways she never could have conceived of before it had actually happened. So much was different, and so much was uncertain now.

The house was so empty, without Martin there. But, it wasn’t as empty as it had been that first month he’d been missing. Martin’s life had become entwined with the life of a young man by the name of Ronnie Raymond, and, subsequently, Clarissa’s life had become entangled with the lives of Ronnie’s friends.

It had been three months since her life had been irreversibly turned upside down. Two months since Martin had barely escaped imprisonment with his life, all thanks to Ronnie.

Clarissa shook such morbid thoughts from her head as the doorbell rang, knowing that she couldn’t let herself get lost in them.

“Caitlin, Cisco,” she said warmly, greeting the younger people with a smile. “Come in, come in.” She ushered them inside, throwing a curious glance at the box in Cisco’s hands.

They’d been hesitant to connect, in the beginning. None of them knew each other, and Martin and Ronnie were their only commonality. What if General Eiling was watching them, using them to gain information about the combined form of her husband and Caitlin’s fiancé, about Firestorm?

But Clarissa wanted to know about Ronnie, about the man who’d saved her husband’s life, and Caitlin had felt similarly. They’d connected, and they’d bonded from their shared experience – Cisco too. They refrained from discussing Firestorm over the phone, keeping their conversations vague, but met up fairly often these days.

It was Monday evening though, and Clarissa had just had her new acquaintances over for dinner the previous night. And Cisco had been frustratingly vague on the phone – as they had to be these days – when he’d called.

“Is everything alright?” Clarissa found herself asking as Ronnie’s friends slipped off their shoes and removed their windbreakers.

Cisco hefted the package he held, displaying it. “We think so,” he said. “It’s got my address, but the name…”

Clarissa took a closer look at the label.

“We think it’s from…” Caitlin started hesitantly.

“Martin and Ronnie,” Clarissa interrupted, finishing for the other woman with a smile on her face. Where they label should have said Cisco Ramon, it said Cisco Stein instead.

For the first time in a while, hope fluttered in her chest. They were alive. They were safe.

“Have you opened it?” she asked quickly, though another quick glance at the box showed her that they hadn’t.

Cisco shook his head anyway. “I just got it about an hour ago. We came straight here.”

Clarissa hurried eagerly into the kitchen to retrieve her scissors. The three of them tore into the box eagerly, throwing aside the scissors, the tape they peeled from the top.

“It’s a phone,” Cisco said, pulling the device out.

“And a letter,” Caitlin added quickly, reaching inside to grab at it as if it would disappear if she didn’t move fast enough.

Cisco put aside the phone in his hand, the two of them crowding around the younger woman.

“ _Dear Caitlin, Clarissa, Cisco, and Dr. Wells,_ ” Caitlin read. “ _Sorry we haven’t managed to get in touch earlier. We’re trying to lay low, but we won’t pretend like there haven’t been a few close calls already. We’re both fine though, both as safe as we can be._ ”

Caitlin paused for a moment to catch her breath, swallowed, then continued:

“ _We don’t want to say where we are, or where we’re going right now, in case Eiling manages to read this, but we think we have a way around that. There should be a prepaid phone with this letter, unopened. We have another one. Even if Eiling has your phones tapped, there’s no way he can bug this. Call us as soon as you can – we’ll talk more then. We love you. Ronnie and Martin._ ”

The silence as Caitlin finished speaking was the best silence that had filled Clarissa’s life since her husband had left. It was warm and hopeful, filled with barely contained joy, eager anticipation.

“The packaging’s intact,” Cisco said quickly, scooping up the phone he’d set aside earlier.

Clarissa quickly grabbed the discarded scissors as well, handing them to the young man. As he dug into the plastic around the phone, she and Caitlin exchanged glances, eyes meeting, smiles spreading. Clarissa reached out a hand, entwining her fingers with the other woman’s.

“They’re _safe_ ,” she said strongly, firmly, pleased beyond all rational thought.

Caitlin squeezed back, water shimmering in her eyes, smile as wide as Clarissa had ever seen it on her

Cisco held up the phone, having successfully extracted it from its packaging. He held it up between the two of them. “Who’s first?”

* * *

“Ronnie?” Uncertain. Unsteady. Hopeful.

_“Caitlin.”_ Deep. Full of promise and love.

A desperate, joyful sob. A wide smile, tears falling freely.

_“Ronnie.”_

* * *

“…actually got to see a bit of Texas and New Mexico, and Denver… man – I wish we’d traveled when we had the chance.”

A breathless laugh, slightly disbelieving but bubbling with happiness. “When did we ever have the chance?” She knew he was just distracting her, downplaying his troubles – they weren’t just _traveling_ – but she didn’t care. He was safe.

Laughter. “Guess you’re right about that.”

* * *

“…dinner every Sunday, both Cisco and me. Dr. Wells is invited too, but he’s never taken her up on it.”

“That’s good. Martin’ll be happy to hear that Clarissa’s keeping herself busy. Speaking of the professor…”

“I know. How much time do we have?”

“We should probably keep it short – save some time for later. Is Cisco there?”

“He’s right here. I… I love you so much Ronnie.”

“I love you too. Forever and always.”

* * *

“Hey man!”

“Cisco. How’s that firefighter suit coming along?”

An echo of Caitlin’s laughter from before, breathless and pleased. “Man it is so good to hear your voice.”

* * *

“…absorb radiation?”

“Guess we’ll find out. The professor certainly thinks so, and I’m inclined to agree with him.”

“Right, speaking of…” A glance over at Clarissa, a small smile.

“It was good talking to you, to both of you.”

“Stay safe, Ronnie. I mean it.”

“We’ll do our best.”

* * *

“Martin?”

“Clarissa. My love.”

A gasp, tears shimmering as they formed, swelling and falling. A hand, covering a mouth with joy. “Oh _Martin_.”

* * *

“…keeping us safe.”

“And… you don’t… mind?”

“It’s… it’s indescribable, really. Existing but not, there but not me. And the power at our fingertips, what Firestorm is capable of… It’s astonishing really.” A pause. “I think I minded, in the beginning, not being me, but… not so much anymore. As I said, Ronald really is a remarkable young man. Together we are quite…”

“Safe.”

“Yes.”

* * *

“Once we know more about what we’re capable of, we may even be able to come home.”

“That…” More tears. More smiles. More indescribable joy, bursting at the seams, a fluttering hope in her chest, the trails of water along her cheeks, the ache from the grin that stretched across her face, wide and bright. “That would be wonderful.”

“I miss you so much.”

* * *

“I love you. Stay safe, please stay safe.”

Clarissa hung up the phone with a wide grin, exchanging astonished smiles with Caitlin and Cisco, the three of them still standing in her kitchen, empty box in front of them, letter laying on the counter.

They’d used up thirty of the precious one hundred and twenty minutes already on the phone, but that didn’t really register.

Martin was alive and well. Ronnie was alive. She’d spoken with her husband, heard his voice again, made him laugh. And the awe in his tone when he’d spoken about Firestorm, talked about Ronnie, assured her that they were both safe. She didn’t doubt that he had suffered – there’d been weariness in his tone too, and a desperation when he’d first heard her voice, a longing for things he no longer had – but he was safe. It was enough. It would have to be enough.

She glanced over at Caitlin and Cisco.

“Stay for dinner?” she asked impulsively, still grinning, still crying.

“Of course,” Caitlin said warmly, with a matching grin and matching tears.

“I’ll set the table,” Cisco offered, and his hand wiped at his own eyes, and his grin lit up the room.

* * *

Six days in St. Louis, finding the best place to lay low while they were separate, and anticipating a phone call. A four-hour drive to Indianapolis, and then only a couple hours there before they ran into another trucker willing to take them the three hours to Columbus. There they lingered for three days, getting some rest. Firestorm slid seamlessly into the flocks of students panicking about their upcoming finals near the Ohio State University campus, his sunglasses and backpack not remotely out of place.

Then they caught another ride, staying on I-70 for the last three hours of the trip, and got dropped off on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. From there, it took them another four days to get themselves cleaned up as best they could, and make their way on foot to Dr. Byerly’s office at the university where he taught.

Two more weeks of travel, and May was almost upon them, but it didn’t matter.

They weren’t running scared anymore. This time, they had a plan. And once they figured out exactly what Firestorm was capable of, they wouldn’t have to run any longer.

* * *

John wasn’t in his office when Martin and Ronald finally arrived, so they loitered in the hall outside it, and Martin shared some of what he knew about his friend with the younger man. An hour passed, then two. They used the building’s restrooms, refilled their water bottles from its fountains, and ignored the others moving about, the classes that started and ended as they waited.

Eventually, when Martin and Ronald glanced up as yet another set of footsteps approached, they laid eyes on the face they had been waiting for.

John stopped, staring at them, taking a moment to realize what he was seeing.

“Martin?” he asked in astonishment. (They’d come separately, not as Firestorm, just this once.)

Martin smiled warmly. “John,” he said, “it’s good to see you.”

John shook his head. “I thought… your wife called, a few months ago…”

“It’s a long story,” Martin admitted. He gestured toward the man’s office. Do you have time?”

John’s gaze flickered from Martin to Ronald and back again. He blinked, then finally moved. “Of course, of course,” he said, hurrying forward to unlock his door. “Come in.”

* * *

“…achieve nuclear transmutation of living matter.”

“What you’re describing isn’t possible.”

“Would you like a demonstration?”

* * *

“His name is General Eiling.”

“I always knew the military was after your research Martin, or, er…?”

“Martin’s still here, but you can call us Firestorm if you want.”

“… Firestorm, then. This is… it’s…”

“A lot to take in, we know. But Martin trusts you.”

* * *

“You want to expose yourself to radiation? There are safety protocols in place, I can’t just…”

“You run the lab John, it’s your call.”

“We came here for your help, but we know it’s a lot to ask. We can leave.”

“No, no, I won’t… I’m not going to turn you out on the street again, either of you. Why don’t you… I’ll call my wife, you can stay with us tonight while I give it some thought.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Ronnie couldn’t sleep. That wasn’t so unusual, these days, but more often he had trouble _staying_ asleep, and no trouble _falling_ asleep. Except this time, he knew it wasn’t nightmares that were keeping him awake, or the weather or the hard ground beneath his back.

He was safer and warmer than he’d been in some time, with a soft pillow beneath his head and a warm blanket over his body. Dr. Byerly had been as kind and generous as the professor had described him, and after a long discussion (and a demonstration) of what Firestorm was capable of, as well as what they were running from, he’d offered them his home. They’d eaten dinner with him and his wife, showered – the man had even lent them some of his clothes, so their own could be washed.

Their hosts had retired to their room, Ronnie had insisted Martin take the guest bedroom, and he himself had gotten comfortable on the couch.

He was pretty sure that was the problem.

After months on the street, the couch was heaven – he would have slept on the floor if he could have kept the blanket and pillow, the clean sleepwear he’d been given – but it was also down the hall and down the stairs from the guest bedroom. He and the professor barely left each other’s sights these days, and they were certainly never more than a few feet from each other when they slept, if they slept separately at all. Now they were practically on opposite sides of the house.

Worst case scenario: if Eiling knew where they were and stormed the house, Ronnie would never get to Martin in time. It didn’t matter how comfortable, how clean and warm and well-fed he was – Ronnie couldn’t sleep with that thought in his brain.

He stood, gathered up the blanket, grabbed the pillow, and made his way upstairs. He hesitated outside the closed bedroom door, but ultimately grabbed the doorknob and silently made his way inside.

He needn’t have bothered with the stealth. Martin was still awake, and shifted as Ronnie shut the door behind him, switching on the lamp that sat on the bedside table. For a moment, they just looked at each other.

“I’ll take the floor,” Ronnie said. They both knew what had kept the other awake, for it was the same thing keeping them from sleeping. There was no need to discuss it, and no attempt was made to console the other, or talk them out of their mutual decision.

“Nonsense,” Martin said. “This is a large bed, and after all we’ve shared the past few months I think we can share this.”

Ronnie eyed the queen-sized mattress. The professor was right. Maybe it was strange that they couldn’t sleep without the other nearby. Maybe it was strange for them to share a bed. But it didn’t feel strange. Not after all they had been through together.

* * *

Life shifted to some sort of mutated form of normalcy, after that, though there was no going back to the sort of life Martin had had before Firestorm.

He slept in a bed and ate at a table, headed down to the kitchen in the morning still half asleep, in search of a cup of tea or coffee. He showered regularly, had a bathroom available at all times. His clothes were clean, his teeth brushed. No longer did he have to deal with the changing weather. Instead, he stayed indoors when he wanted to, and sank his toes into bright green spring grass when he didn’t.

They settled into a routine, complete with alarm clocks in the morning and chores around the house (the least they could do was help their hosts).

In the mornings, Martin and Ronald brainstormed and studied in John’s home office. Martin taught his new friend nuclear physics, and shared his life’s work with him. Ronald was a quick study, and they didn’t have to go too far into the basics, given his background.

After lunch, they’d leave the house together, and walk to the closest neighborhood that was less well off than John’s area, find an abandoned building, and merge. As Firestorm, they worked more on controlling their heat, the size of the fire they gave off. They couldn’t fly, couldn’t let out large blasts without being noticed, but they worked on letting out steady streams, shaping their flames.

They’d melted small amounts of steel before, and they managed to get hot enough again to liquefy a handful of paperclips, a quarter, and an aluminum can, but John had gotten them a sizable piece of tungsten that they hadn’t been able to do anything with except make it glow slightly. Still, melting steel was no small feat.

In the evenings, they had dinner with John and his wife, and then Martin sat down with John afterwards to go over some of the more technical aspects of the FIRESTORM matrix that Ronald couldn’t understand just yet.

All the while, John debated with them exactly which laboratory equipment they wanted to use, the best time to use it, and the safety precautions necessary. Despite what he’d seen, he was still leery of letting them expose themselves to radiation, and that aside, he could lose his job for letting unauthorized personnel into the labs, around such dangerous and regulated equipment.

It wasn’t really a normal life, by anyone’s reckoning, but it was something resembling normalcy – if you didn’t look at it too closely.

Martin and Ronald still slept in the same bed each night, side by side, watching out for each other. They still had nightmares that sometimes woke the other. Awake they could separate, but never far, and never for long. They did most things together, these days.

Loud noises made them jump, and reach for each other if they weren’t already Firestorm. Once, a dropped pot in the kitchen had almost had them forming Firestorm in the Byerly’s living room. They looked at knives differently, as if seeing for the first time the dangers the utensils presented, and tensed every time the house phone rang.

Sirens in the distance – while they’d been avoided before, on the streets – became threatening, and they always drifted closer to each other whenever the sound neared.

They began to notice other things too, now that they were often separate – things they hadn’t picked up on when they’d spent most of their time as Firestorm. Martin, who had hated pizza before, found it delightful. Ronald started reaching for the bridge of his nose when he got lost in thought, moving to adjust glasses he didn’t wear. Martin added a bit more milk to his coffee in the mornings, when he drank it; Ronald asked for tea, once or twice. Little things, but they added up.

It was a type of normalcy, the steadiness of living live day to day without worrying where your next meal was coming from, or where you would sleep. But it wasn’t normal. Not really.

Surprisingly, Martin didn’t mind that so much.

* * *

Eventually, Dr. Byerly – please, call me John – managed to get them into the lab. It took time, careful planning, and meticulous scheduling, but he managed it nevertheless. They went as Firestorm, not because they were uninterested in the science of them merging, but because it was safer.

Safer to be Firestorm, and safer not to merge in a relatively public area, where anyone could come across the resulting flames.

They waited until May, until after their finals had finished and most of the students had gone home. It meant more time imposing on the Byerly’s hospitality, but neither Ronnie nor Martin were complaining and the Byerly’s had insisted on it, pointing out that they weren’t about to throw them out on the streets.

So the campus was relatively empty, and the building fairly vacant, by the time they did make their way into the lab. The electronic lock recorded all comings and goings (the equipment was both expensive and dangerous), so John also made sure he had a real reason for entering the lab, but there was no camera, so Ronnie was able to walk in right behind the man.

After all the effort and subterfuge, actually using the equipment ended up being rather anticlimactic.

May turned to June, and all the while Firestorm trained.

They _were_ immune to radiation, but they weren’t _just_ immune – they absorbed it too, sucking in the energy it provided and using it as fuel. Ronnie and Martin both felt energized, standing in the lab as Firestorm, drinking it in.

The second time they went separately, unmerged, and while they couldn’t actively focus on absorbing the radiation the way they did as Firestorm, it didn’t affect them either, and steadily declined as they soaked it in.

Research and radiation and fire and flames. They studied the physics and practiced their powers.

John didn’t just manage to grant them access to his labs a few times – he threw himself into the equations of it all, trying to figure out how it all worked.

Ronnie got to see Martin actively engaged in the science, drawn out of his shell, smiling and energetic as he explained the principals of the FIRESTORM matrix. And Ronnie learned a lot in the meantime too, listening to the two older men. He’d known Martin was a scientist and a professor – now he knew that he was very well known, at least in his field, and that all his talk wasn’t just talk: he had the accolades and awards to back it up.

And while Ronnie and Martin had come up with plenty of ways to test their flames (temperature and size and direction and so on), an outside perspective helped.

* * *

“What happens to your clothes, when you merge?” John asked thoughtfully, near the end of May. It was Memorial Day weekend and the four of them – Firestorm and the Byerly’s – were having a picnic in the park. (And by park, Ronnie meant an isolated area in the middle of the woods where no one would walk in on them.)

Martin frowned at his friend. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“Well, the FIRESTORM matrix fused with _you_ , right? Not your clothes – your DNA. But every time I see the two of you merge and separate again, you come out of it wearing exactly what you started with. Both of you.”

Ronnie and Martin exchanged glances, mutual curiosity flickering across their bond.

“I… I hadn’t ever considered it,” Martin admitted.

“Nuclear transmutation?” Ronnie offered as an explanation. He’d learned a lot the past few weeks.

John pursed his lips. “I don’t know…” he said thoughtfully, slightly doubtful.

His wife – Katherine – let out a laugh. “Oh, why not?” she asked. Like her husband, she’d studied physics too, but she taught at the local high school, not the university. “I might not know as much as you three, but I’ve seen you fuse too. Matter to energy and then back again – except they’re missing some of the matter.”

“She’s right,” Martin pointed out.

“Could we control it then?” Ronnie asked. “The matter that reforms when we fuse?”

He and Martin locked eyes again, curiosity, wonder, anticipation, all surging forward.

After that, they started practicing their fusion too.

* * *

Now it was early June, and for the first time in too long, Ronnie was feeling _good_. Firestorm walked down the streets of Pittsburgh, strong and steady. They had complete control over the flames flickering under their skin.

They still saw machine guns and soldiers in their nightmares, but in his waking hours, Ronnie was no longer so scared of facing down Eiling’s men. They’d held their own once before, and he had every confidence that they could do it again, if it came down to that.

A shout distracted him from his thoughts, a cry of alarm from a nearby alley. Ronnie froze instinctually, tensing, then forced himself to relax. He glanced down at their fist, flexing it, feeling the fire just under the surface.

“We’ve scared away thugs with Firestorm before,” he said.

_“Indeed we have,”_ Martin agreed, solid and firm and unyielding.

They were in agreement then.

Fire roared to life around them, and with a quick controlled burst downward, Ronnie launched them into the air and into the direction the scream had come from. He landed in the mouth of the alley, staring at the five thugs crowded around a young man, scared and trembling.

One man dropped his knife at the sight of them, the metal clattering to the asphalt, and took a few steps back. Most of the others froze.

A fireball at their feet had them running, and Ronnie turned to the young man, frozen against the wall, gaping and speechless.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

The man shook his head frantically, eyes wide.

Ronnie gave him a gentle smile. “Get home safe,” he said, and then took to the skies.

* * *

They left, of course, after that – however prepared they were to face Eiling now, there was no reason to seek out such a fight, and no need to put the Byerlys in harm’s way. Besides, there was more practicing to be done.

Away from anyone they cared for, they could act in the open – fly – without fear of repercussions.

So they left, but they didn’t return to the way they’d lived before.

They still slept under bridges and in abandoned buildings, still scrounged through the garbage for something to eat on occasion, but they knew what they were doing now, and they weren’t hiding, however much they didn’t stay in any one city for too long.

They moved south from Pittsburgh, over the mountains of West Virginia, spending up to a week or two in Roanoke, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Columbia each, before taking a break near the ocean in Charleston, South Carolina, as June turned to July, which gave way to August.

They spent most of their time as Firestorm, but made sure to unfuse every now and again, so as not to keep Martin trapped for too long. They practiced their flying and fireballs, and worked on controlling their merges.

In West Virginia, Firestorm wove their way through the trees, carefully avoiding setting anything on fire, and picking up speed as Ronnie gained more agility.

In Roanoke, Ronnie managed to keep Martin’s glasses when they merged – the first time they’d managed to control the energy to matter conversion. Firestorm stopped two muggings and a carjacking.

In Greensboro, Martin had the idea that he could wear their backpack before merging, and it, like his clothes, would only reappear when he did, safely hidden. They tried it first empty, unwilling to lose any of their few possessions – or the phone and food they had stashed inside – and it worked like a charm.

In Charlotte, they were recognized for the first time when they stopped an attempted robbery, and after that, the news that did talk about them called them by their name: Firestorm.

In Columbia, they managed to switch clothes entirely during the merge, Firestorm wearing what Martin had had on, and Ronnie’s clothes only reappearing once they’d unfused. They stopped a few more attempted assaults there as well.

Fighting crime… It hadn’t been what they’d set out to do. The first few times, they’d happened upon unpleasant events by chance, and simply hadn’t been able to just stand by and watch. The next few times they’d had the idea to seek it out, because what better way to practice their skills then in a real situation?

Now it just felt good to help people. It made it feel less like they were running, and more like they had a purpose. If only they could go home to Central City…

“Soon,” Ronnie said into the phone, eagerly. They’d used twenty more precious minutes of the prepaid phone back in July, but hadn’t called since then. “Within a month or two, hopefully.”

“That’s not soon,” Cisco chided him.

Ronnie couldn’t keep the smile off his face at the sound of his friend’s voice, despite the topic of conversation.

“I know, but… we’ll still be in danger, even when we come back. We want to be certain.”

“I know.” Caitlin’s tone was resigned, and full of love. “We miss you.”

Ronnie glanced over at Martin. “And we you,” he returned.

* * *

They stayed in Charleston a while. Managed to merge with a full backpack on, disappearing into Firestorm – though they kept the electronics and food out, still not willing to risk it. They’d tried materializing things they hadn’t been wearing when they unmerged, but that hadn’t worked out yet. Flying came naturally now, and evaluating their surroundings in three dimensions had become part of their routine. They’d even stood in the ocean as Firestorm, and watched the water boil and turn to steam around them – though no flames had flickered under the water, just heat.

When August ended and September began, they caught the first sight of Eiling’s men they’d had since April.

_“Don’t stop walking,”_ Martin said suddenly, and though they’d been walking in silence up to that point, Ronnie had long since gotten used to the other man in his head. The professor’s words didn’t startle him.

His stride didn’t falter. “What is it?” Martin used his eyes as Firestorm, yes, but he didn’t necessarily look at the same thing Ronnie did.

_“Soldiers.”_

Ronnie’s heart skipped a beat, his breath hitched. However well prepared they felt, however much they’d learned to control their abilities in the last four months, they both still had nightmares of guns, of faceless men in black surrounding them.

“Might not be army,” he muttered. They were in a crowd at the moment, simply strolling through a farmer’s market in the middle of the day, looking for free samples or discarded food. It was loud enough that no one noticed his words, and there were enough people around that he’d put on their sunglasses and baseball cap. His gaze flickered over the milling people, searching for what Martin had seen. “Which way?”

_“Head to our left, but casually. If they follow…”_

“Then we’ll know,” Ronnie agreed, subtly adjusting his course but not his pace. Martin had told him to head to the left, so his eyes flickered to his right. Everyone was dressed in everyday clothing, but his mind focused in on a particular group of men: their haircuts, their sturdy boots, the jackets they wore that could easily conceal weapons, and the fact that they were studying the crowd rather than the market booths all pointed towards one thing. Soldiers.

Maybe it was paranoia, maybe it was just a large group of men relaxing on their day off. Together. At the farmer’s market, without a purchase between them.

Either way, Ronnie and Martin hadn’t been training because they wanted a fight – especially not in such crowded conditions – but because they wanted to be able to win the fights that did occur. Both of them knew that they could never bring the fight to Eiling. He had too many men, too many resources for that. But they could maybe try to prove to him that they weren’t worth the fight, that he would never get his hands on them.

Already the man had spent months and who knew how much money in pursuit of them – surely he had other things that required his attention?

“Where do you think you’re going?” The question was quietly and confidently spoken, with a calm assurance that told them the speaker didn’t actually intend to be answered, but worse than that, it came from in front of them.

They’d been paying too much attention to the group of soldiers now behind them that they hadn’t focused on the people ahead.

Ronnie’s gaze shot forward as he tensed, Martin helping him to control the urge to burst into flames then and there. There were two men in front of them, both his height, with broad shoulders and crew cuts. They both met his gaze head on. One of them was smirking.

He didn’t bother responding, glancing behind him and to the side, noticing the men closing in on them.

“Probably best if you come with us, unless you intend on making a scene,” the man spoke again, hand drifting into his jacket.

_“Shoulder holster,”_ Martin said, and Ronnie agreed.

His heart started trying to break out of his chest with how fast it was beating, his limbs felt stiff and frozen. He hadn’t even noticed his hands had clenched at his sides, but he noticed it now, his fingers digging into his palms. He was strangely panicked and oddly calm. Angry.

These men were the reason why he hadn’t seen Caitlin since February – over six months now, and most of it on the streets.

Martin could feel his anger, even if he didn’t echo it, and he had his own strange combination of determination and fear that gave way to a deadly calm. Ronnie took refuge in that, ignoring his own panic, his racing heart and sweating palms.

“Alright,” he told the soldier, and his voice didn’t even shake. “Lead the way.”

Firestorm followed the two men through the crowd, gaining more people as they went. Two men came to flank either side of them, three more remained at their back. Nine total, and that was just what Ronnie could see.

But… the men created a sort of buffer, almost. With them surrounding him, Ronnie felt he could safely call forth their flames without hurting any of the innocents in the crowd they were now separated from.

Just as he tensed to do so, prepared to leap into the sky, the man to their right reached for them, his hand tightly encircling their wrist.

“Don’t think we won’t shoot,” he muttered, low and menacing. “Can’t imagine you’ll get far with serious blood loss.”

It wasn’t a threat to kill them, but that didn’t make it any less serious.

Ronnie gritted his teeth, wrenching their wrist free, but made no further move. The soldier was right. The chances of all nine of the men missing if Ronnie leapt into the air in front of them were too small to risk it. Ronnie (and, from the feel of it, Martin as well) didn’t intend to go without a fight, but that fight would have to wait, at least a little while longer.

They traveled through the rest of the market in silence, and Ronnie didn’t think he was imagining the few odd looks they gathered. A group of ten men traveling together without a purchase between them did create quite a sight, but nobody else around them was looking for danger. The few that paid them any notice quickly moved on, and Ronnie knew better than to draw attention to their situation.

Eiling had learned from his mistakes, but he still underestimated them. The men herded them to an unmarked van, the back empty but for two benches that faced each other. Two men took the front seats, two got in the back before Firestorm. A fifth sat across from them, and two more filed in after that, sandwiching them between the soldiers. The remaining two got in a car, which was all Ronnie saw before the doors were slammed shut, and the van started.

They’d cut off all possible flight options, after what had happened in New Mexico: at the farmer’s market they would have been nothing more than a giant target. Now, as the van lurched and moved beneath them, they were boxed in, and cut off from the sky.

But Eiling and his men didn’t know everything they were capable of. In New Mexico, panicked and lashing out, Ronnie had focused on the size and power of his blasts – not the heat. None of the men currently watching them had any idea that Firestorm was capable of melting his way through the metal around them. The trap wasn’t as tight as they thought it was, and Ronnie took refuge in that thought.

It was just a matter of where and when, Ronnie mused to himself. They couldn’t wait too long, as they had no idea of where they were going, but he didn’t want to act before thinking through the possibilities.

Worse, he couldn’t discuss things with Martin, not without being overheard at least. He glanced up pointedly at the roof, staring at it, hoping the other man would get the message.

After a moment: _“The metal_ isn’t _really that thick,”_ Martin said thoughtfully, _“but the heat required to weaken it enough to punch through it…”_

Ronnie moved his gaze away from the ceiling, flickering over the soldiers in the van. There was no love lost between them, but they were still people. They’d never gotten so hot in such close quarters before.

He’d have to move quickly, with a focused and precise flame.

He tensed, readying himself. The presence of the soldiers didn’t petrify him the way it might have once, but Ronnie still felt nervous despite his anger. His limbs were shaky, his mind uncertain. They’d melted plenty of things, but they’d never tried to fly through a sheet of metal after melting it.

At least he knew he couldn’t be burnt as Firestorm, not by their own flames.

A moment passed in silence, then another. Despite how much he’d felt prepared for this moment, actually facing it down was something else entirely.

Martin didn’t say anything, perhaps knowing by now that it wouldn’t help Ronnie any, but Ronnie could still feel his partner’s anticipation.

He could do this. He had to do this.

Ronnie focused on the anger he’d felt towards Eiling. It was his fault he’d had to go on the run. He’d caused the pain that had started this whole thing. He’d kidnapped Martin, he’d sent men after them in New Mexico, he was the reason they’d been sleeping under bridges and searching for food in garbage cans.

Gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, Ronnie focused all his rage and resentment on creating the perfect flame: it couldn’t flare outward, and it had to be hot enough, but not too hot – while it wouldn’t hurt them, Ronnie had no desire to hurt any of the soldiers any more than he had to to escape.

In one quick movement he thrust his hands upward, and the unique nature of Firestorm’s physiology meant that he didn’t even need to avert his gaze from the bright flames that followed. Just as quickly, he moved one hand downward, urging the fire to push them upward, covered his head with his other arm, and broke through the softened and molten metal.

In a matter of seconds it was over, and done with, and Ronnie was soaring through the air above the traffic, getting farther and farther from the city. Eiling’s men had never even seen it coming.

It had been done so quickly, over so soon, that Ronnie truly had no idea of how the men had reacted – or how badly they might have been injured by his actions. Their cries of alarm rang in his ears, but he had no idea if they had had the time to pull their guns, if they’d made any move to stop him or only shied away from the heat he’d produced.

His heart still pounded furiously, and he didn’t dare to lower his speed until they had left the city far behind them. The one soldier’s threat to shoot him out of the sky still rang in his ears with the echoes of the men’s cries, and his arm twinged with remembered pain, no matter that his gunshot would had long since healed.

When he did land, in a field far from any buildings or roads, he fell to his hands and knees, stomach clenching as sour bile made its way up to the ground in front of him. He told himself he was just imagining the scent of burned flesh.

Martin tugged at him from within, and Ronnie gave in, separating. After a moment, he felt a hand on his shoulder and under his elbow, helping him stand.

“I am no fan of violence either,” Martin said, calm and firm, “but we did what had to be done.”

“I know that,” Ronnie responded half-heartedly, his mind going back to the two other times he’d faced Eiling’s men as Firestorm, wondering how badly he’d hurt the people he’d blasted from his path. “I want to go home,” he continued without thinking.

Martin put what he thought was a comforting hand on Ronnie’s shoulder. “As do I,” he admitted wistfully, “but do you not think that it is the first place Eiling will look?”

Ronnie spun, dislodging Martin’s hand as his anger resurged. “Why should we care?” he half-shouted. “I thought the whole point of this was to make sure that he couldn’t touch us – to make sure we could _go home_.”

“Well… yes… I, I suppose…” Martin spluttered for a moment, taken aback (probably by Ronnie’s changing moods). “But…”

“We could have killed those men,” Ronnie said, and his anger evaporated again, voice lowering as he sunk to the ground once more. “ _I_ could have killed them.”

Martin was silent for a moment. Ronnie could feel his emotions fluctuating, searching for something to say. He shook his head, and turned from his partner.

“We can’t take the fight to Eiling, and we can’t wander around the rest of our lives waiting for him to give up,” Ronnie reminded him. He was tired, and his arm hurt from bursting through the van roof. The sour taste in his mouth had nothing to do with the unpleasant feeling in his gut, and everything to do with him wondering if he’d killed anyone since that night he’d infiltrated a military base to save the professor.

After the first time they’d been attacked, their reaction had been fear and panic, but also a determination to stop running. They’d gotten jumpier, more paranoid, but they’d stopped wandering aimlessly and had started trying to figure out what they were capable of, what they could do next time Eiling had caught up with them.

And now he had, and however prepared they’d been, fear and panic were still Ronnie’s first reactions. The need to stop running. A desire for his old life.

Nothing had changed, despite the months and the cities and the new skills.

“I want to go home,” he repeated out loud. This time though, his tone was resigned. He knew Martin was right – if they returned to Central City as distracted and vulnerable as they were just then, Eiling would grab them in a heartbeat.

“I know,” Martin agreed, just as resigned, just as longing. “But…”

“I know.”

They couldn’t take the fight to Eiling, and they couldn’t run forever, but if they were going to go home, they couldn’t afford to be distracted.

Determination surged through Martin suddenly. “Let’s plan,” he said.

Ronnie shot him a look. “What do you think we’ve been doing?”

Martin shook his head. “No, I meant for… for after we get to Central City. Our lives cannot simply return to what they were before. With Eiling chasing us, we cannot travel too far from the other. So, let us… plan for that. Let us decide how we can live our lives both as… as Firestorm, and as Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein.”

Ronnie nodded absently as the professor spoke, feeling a renewal of hope. He didn’t even care about the fact that even in Central City they would have to stay close. After all their time on the street together, he wouldn’t have felt safer any other way. There was a definite bond between them now, both literally – the empathic connection that lingered even when Firestorm wasn’t around – and figuratively, after the months they’d spent at each other’s sides, relying on each other.

“And then we can go home,” he agreed.

“And then we can go home,” Martin echoed, smiling faintly.

* * *

Their phone rang in early October, when they were still debating the best time to return home. They’d worked out most of the logistics, made plans for most scenarios, and both agreed they’d be home by November, but they hadn’t set a date yet. There’d been no sign of Eiling since his attempt at kidnapping them a month ago, and they’d lain low and stayed on the move.

Ronald answered the ringing device, putting it on speaker. “What’s up?”

“Hey guys,” Mr. Ramon’s voice came through.

“We were thinking it might be time for you guys to come back to Central City,” Dr. Snow’s voice followed.

Ronald and Martin exchanged glances, concern and curiosity flowing between them.

“We were still trying to plan out exactly how we’d handle things, coming home,” Ronald told them.

They were able to handle things as Firestorm now, but that was the point: _only_ as Firestorm could they fight back. Going home to Central City didn’t mean returning to their old lives. They’d have to remain close to each other, capable of merging at any time, until they could be sure that the threat Eiling presented was gone. Working out those logistics were the only reason they hadn’t returned yet.

“Yeah, we know,” Dr. Snow started, “it’s just…”

“Just what?”

Mr. Ramon took over. “It turns out,” he stated simply, a small tinge of excitement in his tone, “that you weren’t the only ones affected by the particle accelerator.”


End file.
